


Soul's Ground

by leradny



Series: The Spirit Trap [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Harassment, Slow Burn, since they're not even on the same side yet, with slightly more bloodshed and death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27665645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: After nearly a year of study, the boys part ways with the Water Tribe to journey through the vast expanse of the Earth Kingdom for Aang's earthbending master. Princess Zuko and her Uncle Iroh are declared wanted criminals by the Fire Nation after the failed siege of the Northern Water Tribe and capture of the Avatar, disguising themselves and eventually finding their way to Ba Sing Se. [Sequel to The Spirit Trap]
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Spirit Trap [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939375
Comments: 19
Kudos: 44





	1. Food for the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I know I said it was going to be two weeks till Book Two was up and now it's pretty much been a month. I did have a vitamin D deficiency which knocked me out for a while, but honestly I could have still had this up a week ago. I just didn't because of writer's block. Which was, uh... mostly caused by the fact that once you take out the filler episodes, the Aang-centric episodes, the Zuko-centric eps, and the Kataang scenes, Show Katara doesn't have much individual character development in Book Two until the second half, really. So I have all of Zuko's scenes written but I'm trying to scrape together at least a character study for Boy Katara from scratch.
> 
> This chapter brought to you by food, symbolism, nice old ladies, dead people, and Zuko crying.

At first Katara thinks he'll never stop looking to the ocean to see if Zuko is coming back or the Fire Nation is launching another invasion. It takes a few weeks for him to relax, to believe that the North Pole is truly safe--but once he does, time passes so quickly that before he knows it the sun starts rising again. By summer, he's reached Attendant status under Yugoda and high-intermediate status under Pakku.

Nanurjuk is sending a retinue to the South. While Katara and Sokka want to visit Gran-Gran, they can't let Aang travel alone, particularly not with his very conspicuous sky bison and knowing that the Fire Nation is hunting him. They ask if they can sail part of the way with the progress before parting ways for Omashu, where Aang wants to train in earthbending under King Bumi. Pakku volunteers as chief ambassador with a few other waterbending masters and their students to build up the defenses of the South. Yugoda volunteers, bringing her senior healers and a few apprentices to distribute medical training and aid.

Sailing along the Eastern shore of the Earth Kingdom would take too long for them to reach Omashu or the South Pole, though it would technically be the safest. The trip will go between the opposite shore of the Earth Kingdom nearest to the Western Air Temple to avoid the military presence in the lake by the Serpent's Pass.

Travel preparations are halted briefly by Sokka's sixteenth birthday and how he gains enough height to stumble over his feet and outgrow all of his clothes. Nanurjuk tells him that due to the numerous alterations and rare materials used for his suit, they can't simply let out his formal wear or add trim. She gives him a much plainer suit with room for growth, as well as an extra suit for Katara since he's sure to go through the same growth in a year or so. For Aang, she simply gives him his saffron-colored parka as a parting gift.

Katara is given the choice of which mastery to start training for once he returns to the South Pole, since both healing and martial bending will take about five more years of rigorous study to finish out. He picks healing and assures Pakku that he'll maintain his martial skills in the meantime. Aang is much more advanced for his age group in terms of the physical forms, but he doesn't have the discipline to be called master, so Pakku settles at calling him high-intermediate as well.

Once they're on deck, Pakku pats Katara on the shoulder. "Master healing quickly, Prince Katara. By the time you're finished, I might be retired as a teacher."

"Don't listen to him, dear," Yugoda says. "I'm sure this one will live for a long time yet out of pure spite."

Katara circles the ship for a while, learning from the crew members. While they're happy to teach him, they also seem surprised that he's asking at all. The ship feels foreign to him. It's not simply that Northern ships are bigger, but that comfort is such a huge factor. Aang, Sokka, and Katara are given their own cabins, even if they tend to hang out in one. Then Katara spies a familiar cutter-style ship sailing in their wake. Waterbenders and warriors crew the vessel, the only differences being the symbols carved into the prow.

That's the difference, he realizes with a sinking feeling. He's never seen a ship meant solely for travel instead of warfare.

But the Western Shore is quiet enough that Katara's fears are calmed, especially since Sokka reminds him their fellow passengers are warriors and healers.

When General Fong's fortress is in sight, Aang fills the sails with airbending, boosting morale for everyone. He laughs and scales up the rigging to the crow's nest with the speed of a hog-squirrel, greeting the lookout. At the start of the voyage there was a lot of startled screaming, but they've all gotten used to Aang's acrobatics now.

"We'll miss you, boys," Yugoda says, giving them hugs.

"Before you leave, we have gifts for you." Pakku brings out a box. "Avatar Aang, these scrolls will help you master waterbending."

Yugoda beckons to Katara and holds up a small vial of water. "This is water from the Spirit Oasis, Katara. It has unique properties, one of them being enhanced healing abilities. Save it for something very important."

"Thank you, Yugoda." He gives her a hug.

"And the Chieftess told me to give this to Sokka," Yugoda says, giving him an amulet wrapped in paper. Sokka smiles as he unwraps it, but sobers when he sees what it is--a moonstone carved into a crescent and set in silver filigree. He pockets it quickly and says nothing about it as they go to the fort.

\- - -

Iroh's first stop once off the Water Tribe ship is a medicine shop by the ruins of old Taku, seeking guidance in Zuko's long-term recovery. Zuko finds herself the subject of the usual examination, prodding and poking, pulse-taking and such. When the herbalist reaches up to examine her scar, Zuko twists away. "It was healed years ago."

"Physically, perhaps," the herbalist answers. "But the chi beneath, now that is quite a mess, if you pardon my bluntness."

"I nearly died of cold in the Northern Water Tribe--that's why we're here."

"Really!" the old woman says with exaggerated surprise. "And here you are with symptoms of excess heat! Your skin is hot to the touch, your pulse quick, and you are so very irritable!"

Zuko fights the urge to snap at her uncle when he laughs into his fist. She explains, "I am a firebender."

"Even more reason to monitor your chi closely, young lady! All the ice in the world won't cool your spirit."

She is given a warming unguent to put on her hands and feet, which still tingle at the end of the day, then a blend of chrysanthemum and lily-bulb to drink in the morning to regulate the heat in her spirit. Zuko thinks the second one useless. Yet as she tests the unguent on a wrist it does stop the tingling, and lily and chrysanthemum are hardly dangerous or rare blends, so she may as well drink it.

A flash of white and a meow draws Zuko's gaze to the door where the fluffiest cat she's ever seen has appeared.

"Hello, Miyuki," the herbalist says. "We have guests, my love!"

There are a thousand white cats named Miyuki. Depending on how it's written, it means snow or good fortune, both of which are rare in the Fire Nation. Zuko has had enough of snow for the next three decades and good fortune is wasted on her. So she does not relinquish her dignity as Iroh does, crouching and cooing and beckoning for the cat to come over. She turns her chin up and ignores it.

Of course the creature ends up in Zuko's lap by the time dinner comes around, shedding white fur all over her skirts and making eating a bothersome affair. The cat pays no mind when she tries to shoo it away, kneading her with painfully sharp claws. Picking it up and depositing it somewhere else is futile--the cat evades her grasp like the slipperiest of eels, climbing up her arm and settling around her shoulders instead. Iroh isn't jealous at all and thinks it most entertaining, especially when Zuko tries to eat and the cat remains where it is.

"How sweet that Miyuki likes you!" the herbalist says. "Aren't they such a good match?"

"Save for all my niece's softness being on the inside."

They both laugh.

Zuko glares. The cat continues to purr.

The morning passes by without incident. They head down the mountain and into the hinterlands, and Zuko is utterly exhausted by the time they stop to make camp. Without thinking she raises her hand over the pile of wood to light it, but to her horror nothing happens.

"Uncle!" Her scream brings him running. "Uncle, I can't bend!"

"Ah," Iroh says. "Well, I'm not surprised."

"What do you mean, not surprised?" 

"Being as close to death as you were is not something that takes a few days to heal from, even if waterbenders have helped you along. You need a great deal of rest for both your body and mind."

"But I don't have time to rest!"

"Calm yourself, Princess. All will be well." Iroh puts a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, Zuko--when my son died, I could not bend for a time either, and I had taken no injury at all."

She blinks, surprised. "Is that why you retreated from Ba Sing Se?"

"No. I had already retreated by then. I didn't realize I had lost my bending until a while afterward--during my travels."

"When did it come back?"

"When I came home and saw you dance."

She blushes. "I was awful."

"Perhaps you were rough around the edges." Iroh smiles. "But you must remember you were only eleven years old and you cannot compare yourself to Azula. What I enjoyed most was how you cared enough to try and lift an old man's spirit, even after your own mother had disappeared. It reminded me that even though my son was dead, I still had something to live for." He touches the firewood and ignites it.

At his words, at the visible proof of his full recovery, Zuko tries not to panic. But she has never lost her firebending completely--and when she remembers exactly how long she waited for Iroh to return from his travels, she begs him, "But Uncle, it took you months to come back! I can't wait that long, I need my flame back now! Please, isn't there something we can do about it?"

"Well," he sighs, thinking. "If I remember right, there is a colony nearby. We shall look for a fire healer there."

\- - -

"Avatar Aang!" General Fong is a tall man with a booming voice. "Welcome to all of you great heroes! Brave Prince Sokka..." He looks at Katara for a long moment. "And the younger Prince Katara. You know, we heard conflicting stories about your part in the Siege of the North."

Katara raises an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"We can straighten things out now if you'd like." Sokka also notices the snub. 

"No, no, no!" The general smiles. "I beg your pardon, we can discuss rumors later--come along to the feast!"

They eat in a spacious dining room where Aang is plied with not only vegetarian cuisines but desserts. "Avatar Aang, we were all amazed at the stories coming from the North Pole. I can't imagine what it feels like to wield such devastating power. It's an awesome responsibility."

Aang smiles uncomfortably through a mouthful of custard and gulps it down before answering. "Yes. It is."

"Judging from the account personally given me by Chief Arnook himself, I believe you're ready to face the Fire Lord now."

"Whoa, wait, wait!" Sokka says. "General Fong, Aang is twelve. You can't really be thinking of sending a kid into battle."

"Yes, but surely being the Avatar supercedes that. He wiped out an entire fleet of ships!"

Aang flinches and Katara explains, "That wasn't really Aang's choice, or Chief Arnook's--a spirit took over his body."

Fong's face falls. "But you, Prince Katara!" he exclaims. "Did you not fight the Fire Nation Princess in single combat?"

"I did, but she ambushed me."

"But here you are, alive and well!" Fong says. "You are not so far from sixteen, I think, and Avatar Aang is only a few years behind that, so it all works out--"

"Stop."

The voice comes from Aang, but it's not Aang. When he strides forward, eyes glowing, a dust cloud swirls around him so thick that it stings. When the dust clears, there is a tall woman--easily six and a half feet--standing in the twelve year old's place, wearing green armor and a heavy mask of makeup.

"Kyoshi!" Sokka says, bowing down. Katara follows.

General Fong is less... awed, considering it's his people's most recent Avatar. "Avatar Kyoshi!" he shouts, sounding pleased. "So you have chosen to bless us personally with your presence! When shall we launch our attack on the Fire Nation?" She remains silent, frowning. "Avatar?"

"Escort my current incarnation to Omashu as you agreed, General Fong."

"I think--"

"To do otherwise would renege on the oath you swore in writing. Bad enough for a regular person, but when it concerns the Avatar, the universe will be displeased."

"But Avatar--"

She stomps a foot. General Fong sinks into the ground with a shout. When the former Earth Avatar turns to Sokka and Katara, they try not to quiver before her, but she sounds calm talking to them. "Since General Fong has proven unreliable, it would be better to make your own way to Omashu."

"Yes, Avatar Kyoshi," Sokka says. "Thank you for the, uh... backup." She nods and disappears with another cloud of dust. When it settles, Aang blinks and sneezes.

"What happened?"

"One second, Aang," Katara says. He approaches General Fong, though he keeps a distance. "What were those conflicting stories you heard about me?"

"It doesn't matter," Fong says. "You confirmed that you fought the Princess, so clearly the other one is untrue."

"I'd like to set things straight. What was the other rumor?"

"That you saved her life."

"I did that too."

"Traitor!" General Fong exclaims. This would be more intimidating if he wasn't buried up to his neck in earth. "Prince Sokka, are you going to let this disloyalty stand from your own brother?"

"Let me think," Sokka says. "Well, according to our culture, it's not disloyalty, so yeah. I think I will."

"How can it not be disloyalty when you aided the enemy of your people and mine?"

"By the time I found her she could barely stand," Katara tells the general. "I wasn't going to leave a woman to die alone on the tundra, enemy or not."

"The Princess--"

"Zuko was banished for years, she had nothing to do with the siege," Sokka says. "We're Water Tribe, General Fong. We're loyal and we fight hard, but we don't believe in killing women when they can't fight back--or sending children into battle. As the only adult in our group, I've decided I'll take Avatar Kyoshi's suggestion, and you can dig yourself out of that hole."

Aang is glum while they pack up and head back to Appa, and not only because channeling Kyoshi's spirit seems to have drained him. "I think you did the right thing, Katara."

"I know, Aang."

"But why are people are so mad at you? You didn't hurt anyone!"

"They're mad because they were born and grew up in this war," Sokka explains. "When most people look at someone from the Fire Nation, they don't see a person, they see an enemy. They don't exactly have warm fuzzy feelings for anyone."

"Still, he was following your culture's laws," Aang insists. "Why don't they at least understand that?"

"Even we have a hard time following some of our own laws sometimes."

"Then why is it--"

"Because the right thing to do isn't always easy."

Katara suddenly remembers his first hunt where he missed a shot and cried for hours. He was a little ashamed of how he acted the next time they had to go out, throwing a tantrum for the first time he or anyone could remember. Nothing Hakoda did, no amount of teasing from Sokka would change his mind. Gran Gran had to step in, telling him that he wouldn't eat breakfast if he didn't at least go to the hunting grounds, because no grandson of hers would stay idle while his brother and father went to put meat on their table. Katara had agreed, thinking he'd be fine. But after watching everyone eat breakfast without him he promised to go.

As they set up camp for the night and go fishing, Katara asks, "Sokka?"

"What, Nuka?"

"Do you think I did the right thing?"

"You're my brother," Sokka assures him. "Whatever you do--barring something completely insane!--I'll have your back. You know that."

"But what would you have done? If it was you fighting Zuko?"

Sokka has had the same lessons from their father. Sokka fought through every battle they had with the Princess. Katara thinks his brother will play it off like he usually does, hemming and hawing but eventually saying he'd do something similar. He can just hear it: Well, I wouldn't have stitched her back together myself, but I would have given her my coat or something and tipped off an enemy soldier that their Princess was bleeding out in the snow, maybe they should do something about it.

Instead Sokka stays quiet for a long time. When he does answer, he says, "I don't know."

\- - -

The colony does have a fire healer who gives Zuko several options. But acupuncture makes Zuko uneasy and acupressure is still uncomfortable as she despises being touched, so she settles for moxibustion treatment with mugwort. As the old woman puts a teaspoon of dried powder on her back and ignites it with a touch, making the room smell bitter, Zuko coughs a small flame and is immediately relieved. The healer suggests one more day of treatment, however, to see if her bending gets stronger or at least does not regress. She also perscribes bitter chocolate with dried chili flakes and absolutely no honey.

Iroh has taken advantage of the massage parlor nearby. Zuko waits at the inn, brewing a cup and drinking it with a sigh. During the wet season Princess Ursa would have her daughters drink bitter chocolate if they showed the slightest hints of a cough or chill. Azula was better at hiding her sniffles and so escaped most of them. And when she absolutely couldn't, she was still better at sneaking honey into her cup.

"Bitter chocolate!" Iroh says as he arrives back in the room with their dinner. "That is a very good healer. Perhaps I shall buy some for my pains." He inhales the steam and coughs. "Very strong--how much honey did you add?"

"I am a grown woman, Uncle," she says. "I don't need honey in my medicine."

"I am much older than you and I still put honey in mine," Iroh laughs. "You could do with some sweetening, niece."

She eats her dinner in silence, Iroh laughing and holding most of the conversation himself, as usual. Then the innkeeper knocks on the door and says, "A visitor for you two."

"Who could that be?" Iroh asks.

"Maybe the herbalist--" The door opens to reveal Azula, grown somewhat but still a hand's breadth shorter than Zuko. Her rounded face is starting to sharpen. She looks very much like their mother now, save her darker amber eyes and how her hair is now strictly pulled up. Zuko blinks. "What?"

"Is that how you greet your sister?"

"How did you--?" Zuko looks behind her into the hallway. "Is Father here?" She feels a pang of--not fright, she is not afraid of her father, she is simply confused as to what could possibly entail the appearance of her sister after years of no response to her letters.

"No." Azula walks into the room. "But I've come with a message from him. Father has heard of what happened to you at the North Pole, how you nearly died in the snow." There's a tinge of something underneath the sympathy that Zuko can't place. "He's grown to regret your banishment, so he sent me to take you home."

The silence rings like a bell.

Azula says, "Aren't you going to thank--"

Zuko throws her arms around her sister, crying tears of relief. "I'm glad you came and not Father, Azula. I missed you."

There's a long silence before Azula clears her throat and steps away. "Well, no time to waste. Pack your things and--"

"One moment, niece." They both turn to Iroh. "Azula, Zuko is undergoing treatment for what happened to her in the North Pole."

"Uncle, I feel well enough to travel," Zuko brushes it off. "I'm sure we could find a doctor at least as good when we're home."

"Without question!" Azula says. "What is a backwater colony doctor compared to the best physicians in the Capital?"

"This doctor is quite thorough and well-supplied," Iroh tells her with firm disapproval. "It is unwise to leave any medical process half-finished. And Princess Zuko, it was your own recklessness that nearly caused your death. You could stand to learn something. What is one day after the years you have spent waiting?"

That is the point--now that home is within her reach, Zuko feels like an ostrich horse jumping at the bit and even one day is almost too much for her.

But Azula nods. "Well, stay a day if you must. I'll send word to Father. He'll arrange for the best healers in the Fire Nation to examine you when we get home, Zu-chan."

Zuko laughs. When she was a child, the nickname had annoyed her to no end and Azula had caught on and pestered her with it, but now she feels relieved. Even the bitter chocolate doesn't taste so bad. As they pack their things, Zuko says, "The cat was a good omen after all, Uncle!" Her bending has returned, and Father has forgiven her. They are finally going home, away from the cold Earth Kingdom and the even colder Poles.

"Princess," Iroh says. "Do you think perhaps this is... unusual of Ozai to suddenly lift your banishment after nearly four years?"

"Father heard that I nearly died, Uncle," she tells him. "Even if I didn't capture the Avatar--he saw how dedicated I was! People change, Uncle. They change because of family. Didn't you say that the time after Lu Ten died was the greatest evolution of your life?"

"If I had heard my daughter came close to death and regretted sending her away, I would have come to take her home myself. Not to mention Azula was acting strange."

"Father is hardly as demonstrative as you," she says. "Not to mention tied to the throne. As for Azula, it's the first time we've seen each other in years." Something brushes against her mind--the letters she'd sent home and eventually stopped writing after no response. Father most likely enforced her sister's silence, and sending Azula in person was his way of making up for it. "You're reading too much into this, Uncle."

"I think, Princess Zuko, that you are not looking closely enough. My brother treated you the way he did for twelve years, and I find it very strange that he would regret his harshness after you were gone for only four."

Zuko blinks. She tries very hard to think of an answer. His words make sense--they simply won't sink in. Her skin feels numb all of a sudden, like she's fallen into cold water again, shattering the glorious hope she felt after hearing Azula's words. Zuko forces a smile onto her face. "This is all because I forgot about the healing session, isn't it?"

"My dear--"

"I know I have been reckless and you worry about me, but I promise I will follow the healer's directions."

"Well." Iroh sighs. "You have found me out, Zuko. Yes, this is all because I am worried about you."

She laughs. It still sounds too high and strained. "I knew it."

"Suppose you have lost your bending again and must stay another day? If Ozai has truly forgiven you, he would allow you to stay here until you are truly sound of body."

"But we can't stay another day." Zuko looks at her hand and turns her palm up to reveal a flame. "Look, I'm perfectly fine."

"What if something else happened--if the Earth Kingdom learned that three members of the Fire Nation Royal Family were here, and attacked to hold us hostage?"

"Please, Uncle, don't make me think about things like that. We can't stay here any longer. Nothing bad will happen tomorrow. Father is waiting for me." She turns around, suddenly nervous, and starts getting ready for bed. "Everything will be all right when we're back home." Save her scar, but since Father has forgiven her, maybe that won't be so bad either.

\- - -

With Zhao's fleet gone and their whereabouts currently unknown to both Zuko and the Fire Nation as a whole, Katara feels safe without a military escort as long as they stay away from Fire Nation territories. Appa is a little conspicuous, so they walk him rather than fly unless there's a lot of cover or it's nighttime. Aang coughs a lot--the wind is very dry in the Earth Kingdom--and by the end of the day he's wilted a little under the dust. Katara has to admit it's unpleasantly hot in the Earth Kingdom now that winter has passed. He and Sokka are sweatier than they've ever been and it's miserable when they're not flying on Appa away from the baking earth.

When they come across a fenced park with chairs and trees, they leave Appa with some hay. There is an old woman at the gate watering flower bushes.

"Hello," Katara says, holding up his food. "Can we go inside?"

"Of course, dears," she says, standing aside at once.

The park is empty but very well tended, which they think is a fairly good sign. They've already sat down with their food and started eating before Katara notices that between the trees and the well watered grass and flowers, there are stones bearing names. "Um," he says. "This isn't a park. It's a graveyard. I'm pretty sure the old lady thought we were bringing offerings."

"You mean the Earth Kingdom buries their dead?" Aang clings to Katara's arm. "All in the same place?"

Before Katara can wonder what the Air Nomads do for their funerals, Sokka clears his throat. "It's okay, Aang, Katara's a good luck charm." Despite his casual tone, Sokka looks green and puts his food down. "He'll keep ghosts away from us, right Nuka?"

"Just stay here a second," Katara goes to find the old lady, who's cutting blossoms and tying them up with white ribbons. "Hi, Grandma. What's your name?"

"Hien Chun," she says.

"We're very sorry for intruding--we thought this was a park and decided to eat our lunch here, but we just realized it's not. How long till we reach the nearest town?"

"Oh, you don't have to go all the way to town, dear," Hien Chun says. "It's half an hour from here on the southeast road. This is only soul's ground, there are no monsters here. Give the spirits a bite of your lunch in the offering plate and you'll be fine."

So Katara goes all the way back into the graveyard and tells them, "She said we can stay if we give some of our food to the offering plate."

"But do we _want_ to stay?" Sokka asks.

"The nearest town is half an hour off."

Aang's stomach warbles and Sokka's stomach seemingly answers. "We can eat really fast and then go back to Appa," Aang compromises.

Katara tries to ease their obvious nervousness. "They're just people."

" _Dead_ people!" Sokka and Aang chorus.

"Not that there's anything wrong with being dead--" Sokka says to the nearest tombstone. "Um--Your Deadlinesses."

 _Mom is dead,_ Katara thinks. _She'd never hurt us._ He wonders if the dead from different nations can interact with each other, if the afterlife is something like their own world, with different places that they can travel between.

"I've eaten my lunch here every day for ten years," comes the old lady's voice. "The dead haven't snatched me up yet!" She cackles. Sokka turns various shades of gray and Aang stretches his smile as far as it will go. "You boys are young! You'll be fine! Here, I'll eat with you to prove it." She takes an orange out of her bag and shuffles over to the brass offering plate. "Come along, each of you give an offering. Just a little is fine."

They follow her like tigerseal cubs, dropping a bite of their food into the plate and sitting under an orange tree. "Are you the, um... groundskeeper?"

"I am the priestess Hien Chun," she says. "I live in a cottage not far from here." She eyes them. "Goodness, it seems you boys have never set foot in a graveyard before! I take it you are Water Tribe and--" She squints at Aang. "The Central Western shore? They like wearing bright colors there."

"Saro-Guk," Aang agrees at once.

"Oh, you are definitely from there!" she laughs. "Only the old families still call it that. Ba Sing Se renamed it Silla about twenty years ago."

"Yes, I absolutely knew that," Aang says. "Anyway, I'm an earthbender! We're traveling to Omashu so I can find an earthbending teacher."

She invites them to tea, and Aang talks to her for a while about the history of pottery in Silla because she happens to have a pale green teaset made of traditional Goryeo celadon. By the time they've reached their third cup they're discussing the newer styles of buncheong and baekja, which they agree are fine in their own ways but possesses a tragic dearth of artistic quality, as shown by the other pottery she brings out to compare. At least, to them. Katara doesn't see an awful lot of difference except for the colors. He clears his throat to gently remind Aang that they are on a schedule, but he's stopped by Sokka, who is now an avid listener.

"I saw a few pots on Kyoshi Island that looked a lot like that." Sokka gestures to the brown bowl.

"Oh yes, they probably were," the priestess nods. "Most celadon and baekja goes northeast to Ba Sing Se. Kyoshi is too far south--and even if they weren't, they're a practical bunch."

"The only difference I can see is that buncheon is brown, celadon is green, and baekja is white."

"That is not the _only_ difference!"

"But it does help," Aang admits. "With baekja there's at least some color on them. Buncheong is just brown."

Hien Chun lets them stay at her house for the night and then sends them off on their way with a slim book of herbs that they can forage from the wild.

"Make sure to drink plenty of water!" she tells them. She sorts through the pamphlet until she finds a drawing of a pink flower with white markings. "If you'd like to make tea, remember--this is the white dragon bush. It grows here if you know where to look for it. It's very delicious and healthy. What's the rhyme?"

"White on pink, safe to drink," they chorus.

She flips to the other page. " _This_ is the white jade bush, which will kill you slowly and painfully. And how do we remember that?"

"Pink on white, mortal plight," they repeat.

"And what is the antidote for white jade, young healer?"

"Eating bacui berries, which are red and grow on single stems like cherries, will cure the poison in a few hours. But they're not to be mistaken for maka'ole berries, which are a little smaller, grow in clusters on one branch, and cause blindness. A paste of dried wakame seaweed and moonflower leaves applied to the skin will heal white jade poisoning overnight, but it's difficult to find in the wild and so we'll need to find a doctor. If we can't find either of those, eating a lump of clean charcoal will lessen the effects enough to let the poison run its course without killing us, although it will take a week to recover and still be painful. For grown adults, just charcoal will work, but children, elderly, and people who are already sick or weak should seek the proper antidotes too."

"Very good." She pats him on the shoulder.

"Thank you so much, Hien Chun!" Aang gives her a hug. "Goodbye! We hope we'll you again!"

She smiles, patting his bald head. "I hope I'll see you again, too, Avatar."

They all stop in their tracks. They're supposed to be keeping a low profile. Each boy looks accusingly at the other until Katara sighs and asks, "How did you know?"

"Being a priestess isn't all cutting flowers, boys. Now go on to Omashu."

They stop by a river near the Kolau Mountains to rest and refill their water before going up the pass. Aang and Katara train for a while as Sokka snoozes. Then they hear music from a little ways off. A trio of nomads comes into view with flowers and a dramyin. "Don't fall in love with the traveling girl, she'll leave you broke and brokenhearted!"

\- - -

As the ship must remain at port until the tides go out, Azula has ordered a fine dinner to be made celebrating her sister's return to the Fire Nation.

Zuko wanders into the kitchen. The cook is a middle aged woman who looks well off, as her nails are filed into the dragon points and she has the briskness of a well educated lady. Her eyes are gray, however, and her gentle, lined face looks rather familiar. A minor noblewoman, or an older lady who was rarely at court. What is strange is that she is wearing white rather than red. Perhaps she is a widow.

"Princess Zuko," she says warmly. The cook has a fan, a plain stiff fan woven from undyed palm leaves. She uses it to cool both the food and herself at turns. There's a leg of roast beef in the back, heavily spiced. Rice is cooking in the corner and a pot of soup as well. "I heard you were coming. Tell me, is it true that only you dance and not Azula?"

"It's true," Zuko says, then admits, "But I don't dance, either. Not anymore." She's very hungry, but nothing seems done, and anyway it would be rude. She told Uncle she would be calmer, more patient. "Excuse me, my lady, I don't know your name."

"You wouldn't." The cook flicks her fan in a graceful dance move, and putters around the counter in a circle with exaggerated flourishes that make Zuko smile. "I am from Hira'a."

"But I might--my mother was from there," she says. Her throat seizes from grief, but it's a familiar pain. "Princess Ursa."

"Oh, Ursa. She is a rare beauty and a talented dancer. I presume she taught you?"

"Yes," she said. "Only the basics, until our tutors took over." She liked Ursa's teaching better, but her mother had said that it would be good for Zuko and Azula to attend classes and socialize as well, so off she had gone to the Academy and Azula close behind.

"In Hira'a we are taught the language first--how every flick of the fan has a meaning. That is the essence of the dance, you see." The cook holds hers up to hide one half of her face. "See--the mirror." But that isn't right, Zuko thinks. Shielding one's face is the gesture for fear. The old woman points her fan at Zuko and gives one strong wave, sending a palpable breeze. "How pretty you are, child."

That isn't the meaning, either. In a dance this would be a command to leave.

"What is your name, my lady?"

The cook smiles sadly. "My name is Rina. My husband was Jinzuk, magistrate of Hira'a."

She could have sworn she heard that Magistrate Jinzuk died when she was nine or ten. But then, Lady Rina did say 'was.' She doesn't recall hearing about his widow. How did a lady from Hira'a came to cook for the Princess. Perhaps Azula would settle for nothing less than the best and one of her friends had recommended Rina. "I'm sorry. I heard he died." Something is trying to break through to her awareness, something that makes the back of her neck prickle. She gets up, nervous, and says, "Let me help you, grandmother."

Rina seems very pleased at the word. "Don't worry about me, dear." She takes to her mortar and pestle, grinding spices for sauce. She is not a firebender--she raises the flame by hand, fanning it and adding coal. When she tips the ingredients into the saucepan, it smells like cinnamon and ginger, her mother's favorite recipe for sauce, making Zuko's heart ache at the familiarity. "I'll be done soon." She opens a window and lets a cold breeze in, overpowering the scent of good food. "Ah, the wind from the west is icy! And we are traveling west! That is a bad omen, child, very bad."

Zuko coughs. For some reason she thinks of the cat, purring in her lap. The startling whiteness of her fur, matching the ash-white clothes of Rina.

"You look ill, Princess. Leave at once or you'll catch your death of cold."

Zuko, shivering, gladly stumbles out of the galley to find one of the other crew members coming into the dining cabin. "Princess," he greets her with surprise. "What were you doing in there?"

"Speaking with the cook. I think that is allowed."

"Well, yes," he says. "But, Princess-- _I_ am the cook."

Zuko looks back into the kitchen and sees no one there, no pots simmering, and the scent of cold salt air rather than roast beef. "Pardon me," she says, trying to stay calm. "I was mistaken."

White is the color of death, she recalls--of firewood and coal spent till there is nothing but ashes. The cat was pure white and it clung to her so tightly. Cats can slip between the spirit world and the living whenever they please. Perhaps the name was simply a distraction. Perhaps it was warning her of ghosts. At the same time she recalls how gentle Lady Rina had been. While dead, she seemed benevolent. Telling her of danger, telling her to leave.

She doesn't know how to bring up to Iroh that she may have seen a dead woman, so she attends the dinner without saying a word. It is well made according to Iroh, but to Zuko it tastes of ashes.

She dreams she is in her old bed, shivering, with Rina at her bedside mopping her brow. "You must drink the chocolate without honey this time, my dear."

"I hate it," she sobs. Her voice is higher than it is now, her hands when she raises them are plump. "I hate it, Grandmother, I hate it!"

"The storms have come, and your mother told you not to play too long in the rain."

She cries and throws as much of a tantrum as she can while unable to rise. "Azula never has to drink it because she's stronger than me!"

"That's not true. Take a sip, that's all."

"Mother won't make me drink it!" she shrieks. "Don't make me drink it, Grandmother--" She closes her mouth to the bitter cup and it spills down the front of her blouse, onto her pristine white sheets, staining them red. Thunder crackles above their heads, searing through the roof and letting a torrent of the rain come pouring in, soaking them both, but Zuko is still so cold--

"Zuko. Princess Zuko."

She wakes to find Iroh brewing a pot of tea. She's only a bit chilly, not sick as in her dream. She sits up and accepts the tea he pours for her. "What happened, Uncle?"

"You were crying out in your sleep, and when I felt your forehead you were cold as ice. It is better now. Perhaps the boat launch disturbed your dreams."

"What did I say?"

"You called for your mother--and then, strangely, your grandmother." He pours a cup for himself, as always. "I did not think you remembered Ilah so well," Iroh says. "You were about six when she died."

"It wasn't Ilah in the dream," Zuko says. "It was someone else." Rina from Hira'a. She thinks of the storm in her dream, of the cold west wind, of the actual cook who showed up outside the hall. She thinks of how her mother was always sad when Zuko asked why they never visited Ursa's parents. She finishes the rest of her tea quickly. "I think there is a storm coming."

"Oh?" Iroh asks.

"A storm from the west. The rainy season is near. I'll talk to Azula and ask if we can change course."

She finds Azula's cabin locked, as she's already speaking to someone, so Zuko waits outside the door, glancing up at the sky every now and then. It is not cloudy for a summer day on the ocean, but the wet season is just about due in the Fire Nation. She has forgotten from which direction the rains come because even small boats are being powered by coal engines rather than sails, unless the shipbuilders are very traditional indeed. But as the seas are still calm while they are in sight of the Earth Kingdom shore, they must come from the west. That sounds right.

"Princess." It is the cook. "I believe this is of concern--I found your sister in the galley yesterday."

"And I believe you were present at the briefing, cook. My sister and uncle are to go wherever they please until we land in the Fire Nation and my father has them imprisoned." Zuko claps a hand over her mouth, feeling nauseous. "Should they find out before then, they would certainly find some way to escape."

"Of course Princess, I only meant to say that--well, it sounded as if she was speaking to someone in the galley for a long time, yet when I looked there was no one there."

"It is none of my concern if she is hallucinating--"

Zuko steals away at once, trying to keep her tears from spilling over.

At her best, she could not fight Azula and hope to win. She is now keenly aware of how drained her chi is, her spirit feels as raw and tender as her lungs the morning she woke up in the Water Tribe healing house. Once back in her cabin, where Iroh is waiting, she shuts the door without a sound. "You were right, Uncle. This is a trap."

Iroh nods and keeps his voice casual. "We are still within sight of the Earth Kingdom. If we take a lifeboat now, we will make it back to shore in time to disguise ourselves."

"I'm sorry," she says. "I should have listened to you."

"Better late than never, my dear."

Iroh decides fleeing inland is their best bet, as news will take time to travel even with the swiftest hawks. Omashu is closer, and while King Bumi will most likely see through any disguises, he may be persuaded to give them official sanctuary, with Iroh's knowledge of the military movements from Zhao and his confidence in predicting any changes. They have no idea how Earth King Kuei might react to Fire Nation royals asking for sanctuary, and considering how Iroh personally laid siege to the city, it would be better to try all other options first and to remain in disguise for as long as possible.

So they use the last of the money from the the Water Tribe to buy the most basic travelling supplies (again, for they'd had to leave nearly everything on Azula's ship), two sets of men's clothes in Earth-green, wide brimmed hats for the sun and to hide her scar, and an ostrich horse to take them quickly to Omashu. Zuko binds her chest and wears her hair in a man's topknot. Her heart pounds every time they see guards in red armor, but they see an old Earth Kingdom traveler and his son.

At least, the men are convinced by their disguises. Their wives, their daughters, and passing girls on the street eye Zuko with varying degrees of curiosity, especially when she doesn't speak. Her hands she can easily disguise with dust from the road, but her hair is another thing. It is too long, too smooth, and too well-cared for to fit her disguise as a commoner, much less a boy. She cannot spend so much time washing and styling it as she usually does--it might get caught during work, for even a braid reaches her waist, a bun would be too heavy, and it will certainly be more difficult to keep clean during travel.

Zuko leaves the campfire after dinner and kneels by the water of the river. Her reflection is distorted and wrinkled like her scar. Her eyes well up as she takes out the knife Iroh gave her when she was eleven. Her hair has been her only vanity and last refuge when it came to hiding her scar.

 _It must be dealt with. If I don't do this, Father will._ Yet her hand shakes as she unsheathes the knife. _And he will humiliate me by shaving my head in front of everyone._

"Zuko?" Iroh asks, both concerned and wary as he comes out from the tent. He sounds like he has seen a wild animal which he is unsure will leave in peace. "What are you doing?"

She gathers her hair into a fist behind her head and cuts it off. In the corner of her eye, Iroh relaxes. "Uncle," she says, offended that he would think so lowly of her, but at the same time knowing her own temper would not make that implausible. "I would never attack you."

"That is not what I thought."

"What was it?"

He shakes his head and holds his hand out for the knife. After he's cut off his own top-knot, he drops it into the water, a thin white bundle surrounded by the loose black strands of Zuko's hair.

By a graveyard they meet a priestess named Hien Chun. "Your hair is uneven in the back, dear," she says. "I can fix it for you."

She looks to her uncle, hoping he will refuse for her. "Ah, yes, we have been traveling for so long that we could not find a proper barber!" Zuko glares at Iroh, who shrugs. "My nephew would be very grateful for your kindness."

"Nephew?" Hien Chun asks. She clearly knows Zuko is a woman and their disguise rests on how polite she is willing to be.

"Yes," Iroh says firmly.

"Well, I'll give you a trim and you can stay for dinner. Such a handsome young man deserves a good haircut."

"How can we ever repay you?"

"I could always use an extra pair of hands to weed the flower beds."

Zuko throws herself into the garden work for a few hours before Iroh calls her in for dinner. "You can speak," he tells her when she's inside. "Hien Chun will not betray us."

She still doesn't, but she relaxes a bit and after she's finished bathing she at least foregoes the chest binding. After she's dressed, Hien Chun knocks on the door and comes in with a pair of scissors and Zuko bursts into tears.

"Please don't," she says. She is so desperate that she is not even ashamed to beg. "Don't cut my hair."

"It's already been cut, dear," the priestess says gently.

"No, it's already too short, please let it grow back. Leave it alone."

Hien Chun puts the scissors down and raises her hands in a peacemaking gesture. "Fire Nation, are you? And not the colonies, either, not with those eyes. Is it true that upon being banished they shave their heads?"

"For--for women--sometimes."

Strictly speaking, it is supposed to be done by women too, but only the most brutal rulers had done it and it usually signaled the start of something even worse, the sacks of entire cities. Those Fire Lords were universally hated. Yes, men were humiliated by a bald head, but they could still regain dignity, especially older men. Women would shave their own heads out of shame, out of grief at a funeral, but even Azulon for all his strictness had not enforced shaving the heads of the women he banished. So Father had relented--just once, for the first time in her entire life--by telling her she would cut it to her shoulders. It had still felt terrible, almost condescending. Her scar was the most visible mark of disgrace and her skin would not grow back. But she'd taken it, and now look at her, clinging to the last few ragged inches of her once long and silky black hair.

The priestess clucks in sympathy. "And look at your face."

"Don't touch it!" she shouts.

"I wasn't going to." Hien Chun steps away, allowing Zuko to breathe more easily. "What is your real name, child?"

"I can't say," she answers.

"A name I may call you, then?"

She thinks. "Atsuko."

"Well, Atsuko," the priestess says. "I see you have had a painful life, and it might remain so for a while yet. But if you'd like to disguise yourself as a boy until your hair grows out, a trim is the very least you'll need to pass unnoticed." Zuko puts her face in her hands. "Sit down. I'll comb your hair first. It's still wet."

She swallows. "All right."

"In the Earth Kingdom," Hien Chun runs the comb lightly through Zuko's hair, "We shave our babies' heads when they have reached a month old in celebration of how their new life has thrived. It is also when they are officially named. In town I attend several of these parties every year to bless the people's children."

Zuko is neither an infant nor an Earth Kingdom citizen. But it helps to know that a haircut may symbolize something other than shame or grief, even if it must be another country's values.

"Child, you have lived this long and not without struggle." She hears the sound of the shears opening, feels the cold edge against her neck, and fights panic. "We cut off the hair from your old life." Snip, snip. "We call you Atsuko, which means little dove." It means 'hardworking', 'kind', or 'born in summer' in the Fire Nation--but as long as Zuko is distracted by that, she is not thinking about the locks of hair falling to the floor. "As your new hair grows in strong and thick and beautiful, so may your new life be long and peaceful as a dove's."

Peace? The thought seems impossible now. She feels her hair when the cutting is overand shakes her head when Hien Chun offers a mirror.

"There, there. You can still put it in a knot and wear a hat to hide your scar and no one would give you a second glance. Unless it's because you look rather fetching as a boy."

Zuko is rather curious at that. She looks at herself. Even though Hien Chun laughs, she admits that she is nearly unrecognizable even with the scar. But then she realizes the slight familiarity in her face is because she looks like a younger version of her father and she is automatically repulsed by her reflection.

"Now, the way you're flattening your chest is fine in a pinch, but I'd wear a shirt underneath--and better, slip a grass mat under the bandages too. It will relieve some of the pressure and make your breasts less obvious. Wear loose shirts with high collars so you don't have to bind as tightly, make sure you can still take deep breaths, and don't sleep with your bandages tightened or you may break a rib."

"Thank you," she says, bowing.

"And put your hands flat together when you bow, dear. That Fire Nation salute won't do you any favors." It feels vaguely like an etiquette lesson. She nods, too drained to speak any more. At dinner, Iroh kindly says nothing about her appearance, instead discussing their trip to Omashu.

"You'll have to be very careful," Hien Chun says. "Just this morning I heard there was a troop of Fire Nation soldiers crossing the Kolau Mountains. I know of a quicker way--the Cave of Two Lovers. A pair of very kind ghosts watch over a shrine there."

"How fortuitous," Iroh bows--notably, with his hands flat instead of in the Fire Nation salute. "We are in your debt, Hien Chun."

The priestess smiles. "Unfortunately I can give you no map as the badger moles who live in the mountain dig fresh tunnels every day. If you lure a badgermole to you with truffles or mushrooms--and they must be fresh for the strongest scent--you'll be able to follow them out within a few hours. They always go from one side of the mountain to the other, and as long as you make no loud sounds, they won't harm you."


	2. Good Energies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this chapter is late but when i reread it i was like--*tastes* hmmm. needs more bisexual yearning. *dumps a whole gallon in and stirs*
> 
> also more hippie jokes.

The nomads are called Chong, Lily, and Cheech.

They are not nearly as helpful as Katara thought three grown adults would be. Aang is perfectly fine having them weave flower garlands into Appa's fur and pile strings of flowers around his neck and talk for hours about places that have fantastic sights, because Aang is a twelve year old boy. Sokka and Katara go hunting and foraging, and Chong waves them off saying something about how he trusts in the universe to provide for them.

Lily does offer her personal supplies of herbs and spices for lunch, which Katara accepts, except she has no organization whatsoever. The spices are mixed up with medicinal herbs like bhanga leaves (which Chong quickly apologizes for and snatches back), and also a handful of shiny rocks ("Don't throw those away!" Cheech says. "They have good energies!"). So Katara decides to cook by himself.

They do offer to wash dishes with him, which seems helpful at first. Then they get very distracted by the fact that he is the first waterbender they've ever seen (understandable), or the breeze (which is the nicest they've ever felt), then staring into the fire ("Look at the colors!"), and by the time the nomads are finished with one plate Katara has basically finished everything else.

Katara goes to his brother, who's resting on his bedroll. He had not enjoyed hunting for double the people in their group. "Sokka--"

"Leave me alone," Sokka grumbles. "It's hot and I'm tired. Stupid Earth Kingdom."

Katara leaves him alone. He looks over to Aang and Momo, who are napping on Appa's fur with Cheech and Lily. Chong is lying on his back staring at clouds.

"I'm going for a walk," he announces, officially to gather more food but really just because he has nothing better to do. He's glad when no one asks. He steers away from a white jade bush in the middle of a clearing and when he returns, Lily and Chong are collecting another basket of flowers. They're scattering the wilted garlands into the river. Chong plucks his dramyin to a nonsense tune while Lily hums along.

Katara had missed the first round of garlands thanks to the extended hunt they'd had to make and when they got back Sokka was complaining too much about how they hadn't gotten a single step closer to Omashu. He joins in the gathering and asks, "So what do the flower necklaces mean?"

"They don't have to _mean_ anything, man," Chong says. "They're just pretty." That's the first thing he's said since two hours ago, which was: "If oranges are oranges, why are limes not called greens?" which launched a discussion between Cheech and Lily about why some vegetables were called greens but were actually different colors like purple, white, or red.

They are pretty. And unlike in the Poles, flowers grow everywhere in the Earth Kingdom. If they don't seem to be reserved for ceremony, it can't be rude for him to take one. A glance over his shoulder reveals Sokka is asleep and thus unable to grumble. "Can I have one?"

"Lily, as a fellow flower, will you do the honors?"

She does, and she also teaches Katara how to make the garlands. It's ridiculously fun.

"Why are you wearing all those flowers?" Sokka asks in the morning.

"They gave me some. I thought it'd be rude to take them off."

As they finally make their way to the Kolau pass, Cheech announces out of nowhere: "We can't keep going! The rocks are full of bad energy!"

"Are you an earthbender too?" Aang asks.

"No, I bend the energy within myself. A lion-turtle taught me in a dream." Cheech points to a small gathering of rocks. "And those rocks are telling me they're full of bad energy!"

Sokka kneels to cast a critical glance at the pile of rocks, lining a small firepit. The same sight is echoed along the ridge several times. "Hmm. The ground around it is scorched, so they used a fire blast instead of flint. Six of them, well organized, made around the same time--it looks like a troop of Fire Nation soldiers were coming through here." He rests his fingertips on the very edge of the pit, testing the temperature, then hovers around the center. "Still warm. They're already in the pass. We can't go through this way."

"But how are we going to get through to Omashu?"

"Don't worry," Chong says. "We know another way and it's faster, too."

A brief song and a trek through a narrow winding pass reveals another small firepit.

"Another firebender?" Aang asks.

"There is no bad energy coming from this campfire," Cheech declares. "The rocks like whoever came through here."

"The cave wouldn't let anyone in if they were bad!" Lily insists.

Sokka sighs. "There's no soot around the edges. They used flint. Two people and an ostrich horse judging from the footprints. Normal travelers, I guess."

"Hey!" Chong cries. "I just remembered there's mushrooms around here by that big oak tree!" He and the other nomads run over to a large oak tree, kneeling to check the earth, but sigh as they turn up nothing. "Aww, someone dug them up already."

"Can we please focus for a second?" Sokka demands. "How do we get through this tunnel?"

"We trust in love!" Lily declares.

"Does this love take the form of a map?"

"Oh, no, the badgermoles make a bunch of new tunnels through the mountain every day," Chong says. "It's impossible to map it."

"Have you ever been inside this tunnel yourself?" Katara asks.

The three nomads look at each other and shake their heads. "No, we've just heard of it."

"But you knew there were mushrooms!" Sokka shrieks.

"Yeah, because people kept telling us about the mushrooms for some reason that I, uh, can't remember."

Katara physically holds Sokka back until he calms down and sighs. "I don't want to go in," Sokka says. "If we have no idea what tunnels are going to lead out, we'll just get lost and die."

"Oh, hey, I remembered the words to the cave song," Chong says. He strums a chord. "And _die!_ "

"Bad energy!" Cheech warns. "Really bad energy coming this way!"

Aang and Sokka hop onto Appa to get a view and quickly gets down when smoke rises from the distance. "Fire Nation!" Aang cries. "They must have seen Appa. Everyone get on and we'll fly over the mountains--"

"They have catapults," Sokka warns, still in the saddle. "And if we're all on Appa, we'll slow him down. There's too many to fight."

"So what do we do?" Katara asks.

"Ugh," Sokka says. "I hate to say it--but we have to go into the unmappable cave that none of us has been through before."

"Appa and Aang first, they're the most conspicuous," Katara says. "You three go in after them and Sokka and I will hold up the back."

The air inside the cave is cool--Katara hadn't realized how dry the Earth Kingdom air was until he got out of the sun. Aang coughs a little and Katara makes a note to check him later in case the damp gets to him. Every step and word echoes several times, making conversation impossible, and they all try to walk as quietly as possible.

There's a torch flickering ahead of them in the tunnels. An ostrich horse warbles in fear.

"Hush, Sachi," an old man says. "We know you hate the cold and wet." A pause. "What is it, dear?" Whoever he was talking to doesn't say anything. But a pair of footsteps backtracks through the tunnel, drawing nearer to them. Holding a torch is an old Earth Kingdom traveler. Appa groans, and the man jumps back in surprise. "Gods and spirits!" he cries, almost dropping his torch.

The echoes and sudden light make Katara's head hurt.

"Sorry, sir!" Sokka says, squeezing past Appa's tail. "We didn't know you were in here. We're just trying to get through the tunnels. Please don't mind our giant sky bison."

"Of course not! My name is Li," the old man says. He has a strong, unfamiliar accent. "My son and I were awaiting the arrival of some badgermoles. We were told to lure them to our side with mushrooms and follow them out of the tunnels. Apparently that is the only way to get through without being lost." He holds up a handful of mushrooms and truffles.

All in all, a much more practical way than trusting in love. Katara glances at Sokka in time to see him smack his forehead.

"One moment. Son!" Li calls. Everyone winces as it repeats against the walls of the cave. "Do not be alarmed at the strange, enormous, completely unfamiliar creature coming towards us."

"Would you mind if we joined you?" Katara asks. "We couldn't find any mushrooms."

"It may be a tight fit," Li says, looking from his ostrich horse to Appa. "But who are we to refuse?"

"Hey, I just realized!" Lily says. "Your voice sounds so familiar, I was wondering where I heard it--and now I know!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I believe we have never met before."

"You're from Ba Sing Se!" she says. "My mother was from there, but she left. You can always tell who comes from Ba Sing Se."

"Oh! Yes!" Li laughs heartily. "Yes, yes. We are from Ba Sing Se. But we are traveling to Omashu now. On business."

"That reminds me of something." Chong plucks his dramyin. "Cheech! What's the song?"

Cheech sings, "It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se--"

Their new companion joins in at once. "But the girls in the city, they look so pretty!" Sokka makes a strangled sound.

"They kiss so sweet--" Lily pecks her husband on the cheek as he sings-- "That you've really got to meet the girls from Ba Sing Se!" The cave echoes with laughter. Li is loud enough for himself, his son, and his ostrich horse.

Katara's headache grows.

Li's son, for his part, grabs the ostrich horse's reins and heads a few paces ahead of the whole group. "Wait," Katara says, not wanting to be rude. "What's your name?"

The boy does not respond, looking to his father. "I'm sorry, I forgot!" Li tells them. "My son cannot speak. His name is Atsuro."

"Is he hurt?" Katara asks. "I can--"

Atsuro flinches away and shakes his head. "No, no," Li tells them. "He was born unable to speak. But he is certainly communicative in his own way!"

Even from under the boy's broad hat, it's clear that he's glaring at his father. Something about that, and the fond way Li ignores the glare, seems very familiar to Katara for some reason that he can't pin down. But Atsuro turns and calms the ostrich horse with a pat on the beak, continuing to lead it, and Katara shrugs.

A silence occurs; Li and Atsuro, being the first ones in the group, stop every few minutes and take out their handfuls of mushrooms. When the ostrich horse spooks and the tunnel rumbles, everyone hushes. "That must be the badgermoles," Li says. "We were told they are friendly. I hope this is not an exception."

Appa groans and heads forward, spooking the ostrich horse. "Wait, boy," Aang calls. "It's okay."

But another rumble spooks the ostrich horse further and Atsuro yells in pain as it wrenches the reins out of his hand. He runs after their mount and Li shouts, "Atsuro, no! Come back!"

"It's okay," Cheech tells him. "If you trust in love, you and your son will be reunited at the other side of the mountain."

No matter how much he clearly detests the singing, Sokka looks unwilling to go further down the dark tunnel and away from the group. Aang is fast, but he has his hands full trying to keep Appa from panicking.

But they have to do _something_ , so Katara sighs. He squeezes past Sokka, Lily, Aang, and Appa and coughs out some of Appa's fur before running after them--trying to be as quiet as possible. "I'll get them to the other side of the mountain, Li. We'll wait where we are until you get out and send up a smoke signal or something like that."

"Ah--but--my son does not do well with strangers, perhaps I had better--"

The spirits-cursed badgermoles choose that moment to dig through the tunnel behind Katara. Appa groans, Sokka shouts his name, and the nomads all yell "Don't worry! Trust in love!" before getting drowned out by the reordering of the tunnel they're in. When the dust clears, he seems to be alone in a wide cavern lined with fallen rocks.

"Aang?" Katara calls. "Sokka?" He waits for his eyes to adjust. "Atsuro?"

A mournful squawk comes from the other side of the cavern. Katara instantly heads over, finding the ostrich horse a little stunned. Sachi calms down as he frees her from the rubble and when he examines her for broken bones, he finds nothing besides ruffled feathers and a few small cuts.

"Atsuro," he calls.

More rocks shift. He leaves Sachi where she is and goes to help Atsuro out. Despite being covered in debris, the torch has survived against all odds and the light flares as it's released. Sachi comes forward and nuzzles at Atsuro.

"Are you hurt?" Katara asks--before remembering that the other boy can't speak. "Oh. Um." This was most likely why he doesn't do well with strangers. But Katara was taught how to communicate with patients who couldn't speak or hear or see yet were otherwise completely conscious. He takes a deep breath and remembers everything he learned, keeping his voice clear, but normal-paced. "I'm a healer. I'd like to take a look at you in case you hit your head."

Atsuro shakes his head, but coughs and stumbles. Katara quickly grabs the torch out of his hand--and is surprised to find that Atsuro's hand is very soft. Atsuro growls and tries to snatch it back.

"Wait. Please, it'll only take a few minutes. I need to check you for a concussion." Atsuro shakes his head and pulls away frantically, but not before Katara sees a flash of red against very pale skin. If he's bleeding from a head wound, he really won't be reliable describing any symptoms unless they're very obvious like throwing up or falling unconscious. Katara will have to examine him despite the refusal or he might die. "You're bleeding, I need to--"

"Don't touch me!"

It's not a boy's voice. It's a woman's. And he recognizes it. "Zuko?"

She sighs, nods, and pulls her hat back to reveal her scar and her hair, cropped to about chin-length.

"Your hair!" Katara says, surprised. She bristles. "Why are you in disguise?"

"None of your business," she snaps.

"Are you trying to capture Aang?"

She pauses. "Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"

"Not really," he says.

"Very well." Zuko sighs again. "I'm willing to call a truce until we get out of this cursed mountain. I'll take the--" Sachi chirps and rests her beak on Zuko's shoulder. "The ostrich horse," she finishes, her haughtiness somewhat deflated.

It's been a few months since he's seen Zuko. But if even she's putting her pride away to suggest a truce, Katara is fine with that. Also, it's a little difficult to be intimidated by someone who's being cuddled by an affectionate animal. "Truce," he agrees. "But I really do need to check you for a concussion."

"I feel fine," Zuko dismisses it.

"You might not remember if any rocks hit you in the head," he points out. "And you can't get back to your fa--uncle if you die of preventable internal bleeding." Zuko sighs and sits down as he coats his hand in water. "Can I touch your hair?"

"You may," she grumbles.

It was a lot easier to treat Zuko when she was unconscious.

\- - -

Li stands at the wall with his torch, lamenting, "Oh, gods and spirits!"

"It's all right, sir," Sokka says. "My brother's a healer and he's pretty smart. He'll get your son out of the mountain safely."

"To be honest, I am more worried about your brother," Li admits. "My son is... unsociable." A badgermole nudges his pocket and he sighs. "But as Katara did decide on a plan, we may as well follow it. At least we have the badgermoles at last."

"Nice badgermoles," Chong says. He picks up a fallen mushroom and holds it out. "Can we follow you to the other side of this mountain?" The badgermoles sniff at the mushroom, then grab it and start tunnelling. "Looks like we'll be out of here before we know it!"

"Love, love, la-la-love," Lily hums. The cave hums with her.

"The acoustics in here are amazing," Cheech comments.

"Ten thousand miles and more between us, each at opposite ends of the sky. The road I travel is steep and long; who knows when we meet again?"

"Perhaps we might sing something happier," Li suggests. Lily plays her flute instead.

They go on for a while before Aang drops back and asks, "What's that glow, Sokka?"

"A torch, Aang," Sokka says. "Did you hit your head? Because we'll have to wait till we get to Katara--"

"No, it's coming from your pocket."

Sokka takes out everything in his pockets. When he reaches the white amulet Nanurjuk gave him and unwraps it, it glows like a miniature moon.

"Aww," Cheech says. "That rock is full of love."

"We've already got torches." Sokka puts it back in his pocket to a very disappointed groan from the nomads. "Anyway, let's follow the badgermoles."

\- - -

This tunnel slopes down a little, making Katara slip every few steps. Sachi handles it well with her clawed feet easily taking hold in any crevice, so Zuko ends up using the mount as a counterweight. But eventually Katara hears her shivering. The first time they stop to wait for badgermoles, he asks, "Are you all right?"

"Fine." But Zuko clutches at herself while she holds the mushrooms out.

When her teeth start to chatter, Katara sighs. He turns around to see her clinging to Sachi's side for warmth. "You're shivering."

"Because it's _cold_ ," she hisses.

"It's not cold."

"Perhaps not to you. I was not raised in a land that threatens to freeze anyone who steps outside without eight layers of clothing!"

"If it were as cold as you seem to be, our breaths would be visible and Sachi would be cold too." He holds the torch a little further away from his face. No mist, either from him or from Zuko. And Sachi seems perfectly fine. "I think you're sick."

"Yes, that _would_ be my luck," Zuko snaps. "It took us months to travel what would have taken a few weeks at most--and now it will take even longer to reach Omashu."

"I thought you had a ship," he says. 

"It--" She stops herself before she answers. "We were waylaid. For reasons which are still none of your concern."

Obviously she won't take to him examining her by waterbending, or even a forehead check. He sighs. At least communicating will be a little easier since he knows she can talk now. "Do you have a headache?"

Zuko grumbles, "No." She starts walking again.

"Has your appetite been unusual?"

"Define unusual."

"Do you not finish your normal amount of food--or do you eat more than one serving?"

She sighs. "I suppose it's been low. Even considering how bland Earth Kingdom food is."

"Have you had any stomachaches or unexplained stabbing pains anywhere?"

"No."

"Have you been sleeping well?"

She pauses. "No."

"Do you remember being around anyone who was coughing or fevered?"

"No."

"Hm." Lowered appetite and lack of sleep aren't exactly clearcut, ominous signs of illness. If they really have been traveling for the past few months, that could be the only reason why. But the cold--Katara knows cold like the back of his hand. The water against the walls of the cave is cool, yes, but not even close to freezing. For Zuko to be shivering when she's wearing long sleeves doesn't make any sense. "Could I check your forehead? Just to make sure you're not running a fever?"

"I would know if I was fevered," she says.

"That's kind of the point of illnesses," Katara says. "You can't tell if--"

"No."

She puts her hat back on and hides her face. Katara realizes she only broke her disguise when he tried to touch her face, and considering the massive burn, of course she wouldn't want anyone near it. "Your hand, then," he tells her. "If you don't want me to touch your face, I'll check your hand instead." It's not ideal, but it will at least let him know for sure.

She looks at him for a very long moment. Then she steps back with a scrape of loose gravel. Katara is about to sigh and resign himself to a patient refusing treatment before she extends her arm as far as it will go. Her hand is still just as startlingly soft as it was when he took the torch. But she's not fevered. Her skin is cold, but the kind that feels as if she's spent a long time in the wind and it snatched away the warmth in her skin.

"Huh," he says, letting go of her hand. "So you're not sick. But I don't know what's making you so cold and not me, other than the lack of sun."

"The sun!" Zuko exclaims. "I've never been so deep underground that I can't feel the sun. And this mountain is dead, as well."

"It's stone," Katara says, thinking of Cheech and his rock energy. "How can it be alive?"

"Mountains in my country are full of fire," she says. "When they're young, at least. They melt the rock inside them. This one has stood for a long time. That must be why." She looks behind them. "My uncle must be feeling it even more keenly." She looks to Katara suspiciously and demands. "Your friends will notice if my uncle is feeling unwell, will they?"

"I think so."

"And--they'll help him?"

"Yes."

\- - -

Li drops to the back of the group, huffing and puffing. Sokka automatically extends an arm. "You all right, Grandpa?"

"All is well," Li agrees. "I am simply older than all of you. And in this small, enclosed space with many people, it has grown quite hot."

"You're hot?" Aang asks. "It's freezing here!"

"Aang," Sokka says. "You spent the entire time at the Poles wearing your normal clothes even though everyone told you to wear your parka, and it isn't even winter here. How can you be cold now?"

"I just am!" he exclaims, burying his face in Appa's fur. "It's been getting colder the further we go into the mountain."

"I have been told that people with sensitive chi may feel cold when there are spirits nearby," Li says. "And there are ghosts in this mountain."

"Ghosts?!"

"The lovers!" Chong and Lily exclaim.

"Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts," Sokka mutters. "Everywhere in the Earth Kingdom there are ghosts and spirits."

"And where do your spirits go when they rest?" Li asks.

"In the sky or under the ocean," Sokka tells him. "Where else would they go? The earth is for the living."

"Perhaps in the Water Tribe," Li says. "In the Earth Kingdom there is plenty of room for both the living and the dead."

\- - -

The torchlight is dim by the time they reach a massive cavern. It's been hewn or bent into a regular square shape, and there is a massive set of statues with a depiction of the two lovers. Presumably they are buried there, but as they are reportedly the first earthbenders, Katara doesn't know if they are still there or if they've returned to dust.

"Oh," Zuko says. "The tomb." She backs away from the doors, muttering "Must it be so _large?_ A whole village could fit in there..." Katara briefly wonders how Fire Nation people treat their dead. But as she seems unlikely to answer the question, he decides to indulge his curiosity with the Earth tomb. Just a little. He rests a hand on the edge of the woman's sleeve, to Zuko's irritation. "I don't think--"

"Pardon our intrusion," he says. And as he's still wearing a flower garland, he takes it off his neck and lays it at their feet. "We're just trying to get through to the other side of the mountain." Zuko still frowns, looking from the cave to behind her. But nothing terrible happens. "Well, I don't think these are angry ghosts."

"Are spirits so friendly where you come from?"

"Not always," he says, but the first thing he thinks of is the rainbow bands of light that grow in the sky at the Poles. In the North, they are the ghosts of children playing. In the South, they're any loved ones who died. "But at least these are human. If we're polite, they'll probably let us pass."

There are statues and plaques scattered around the base of the statues, but Katara can't read them--they're faded, the light is dimming and he doesn't recognize a lot of the characters still there. It must be a very old dialect. Zuko holds her hand up, squinting at them, then scoffs. "Nonsense. A flame works fine to light the way. Give me that torch!"

"It'll go out soon," he says.

"Not in my hands." She snatches it away from him and the flame brightens, throwing everything into stark relief for a few moments, making Katara's eyes hurt.

Then the torch goes out.

Sachi gives a high, piercing call of alarm. "No, no!" Zuko says. "Come back!"

"I'll find Sachi," he says.

"Not her, the flame!" Zuko takes a few sharp breaths, but nothing else happens. "Curse this mountain!"

Katara's eyes adjust quickly after fifteen long winters of darkness. He can see the dim outline of Zuko, waving her hand over it, and then realizes he really shouldn't be able to--even Water Tribe eyes need moonlight or starlight. Whatever is here casts a green haze over everything. And he looks up to find crystals embedded in the walls, letting off a subtle glow. "There are lights here." Katara points. "Up in the ceiling--can't you see them?"

She pulls her hat aside--her one good eye is wide and frightened--and stares upwards. "I can't see anything."

"Maybe if I--" He unstops his water flask and gloves his hand in water, then focuses his chi and watches it glow. "Here."

"What are you doing?"

"Waterbending."

"I can't see that, either," Zuko snaps. "Show-off."

He realizes with a start that the only people who have reacted to the glow of chi are other waterbenders looking on as he heals a patient. And patients themselves aren't exactly reliable sources even if they are conscious. Well, there goes that option. He puts the water back--there's no point in wasting energy when there's another, constant light source, especially if he's the only one who can see either. He'll ask Sokka when they get out of the pass. "So you can't bend at all?"

"I--I don't think so." She clings to Sachi's neck. "Not for the moment, at least!" she snaps. "When we get out of the mountain, I'll be able to bend. And I can still defend myself without it!"

He sighs. "I won't hurt you. We have a truce, remember?"

"That was all very well and good before! You--you could tell my uncle that I died in a collapse and he would never be the wiser!"

"What do truces mean in your country?" Katara demands. "Why would I go back on my word? I've already healed you once!"

"Oh." There's a long, awkward silence. "I..."

Katara sighs. "No, don't apologize. I'm sorry."

"I meant to say that I don't remember that very well."

"You are alone with an enemy that you can't see and you can't defend yourself. It's fine that you're scared. I shouldn't have ordered you to trust me just because I did one thing to help you last year. And if you don't even remember it, that's all the more reason for you to be afraid."

She pauses. "You sound very much like my uncle."

"It's part of healer training." He takes a deep breath. "Let's try this again. I still have every intention of upholding the truce."

"I have no real reason to distrust you," Zuko admits. "I shall uphold the truce as well."

It's awkward, but it gets the point across.

\- - -

"You seem troubled, son," Iroh comments, remaining near the back of the group. The elder Water Tribe prince keeps an eye out, and has not complained about the singing from his nomad companions in nearly an hour. "Yet I am quite confident we are safe. Might your distress have something to do with that moonstone?"

Sokka grumbles. "It's nothing."

"Very well." Iroh walks on, still within earshot, and waits patiently.

Not a minute passes before Sokka clears his throat, jogs to catch up to him, and says, "So there was this girl."

Iroh smiles.

\- - -

Zuko trips and swears under her breath. Again. Katara sighs and turns around. "I'd be happy to help you."

"I'm fine." Sachi squawks. "Oh, quiet! Your foot is twice the size of mine." There's a noise which sounds very much like a peck. "Ow!"

Katara backtracks. Zuko freezes. He stands at arm's length and tells her, "I'm standing in front of you, holding my arm out near your right side. You can take my hand if you want."

She stands up and leads Sachi ahead. Still stumbling.

How can someone so stubborn be from the same family as General Iroh? Maybe they're in-laws. They don't look particularly similar except for the eyes.

\- - -

Aang fetches a blanket from their packs and wraps it around his shoulders. This high up, he can't help hearing everything.

"Ah, that is a difficult situation," Li's voice floats up as he pats Sokka's shoulder. "I went through much the same thing when my wife died. And when my son died."

"Your son?"

"I meant--my oldest son."

"Oh. I'm sorry, that sounds much worse."

"One man's pain is not any worse or better than another... It is simply pain, and..."

Aang decides to leave them alone.

Cheech is trying to see if the badgermoles can understand him. Chong and Lily are still singing about love and the four seasons. If it wasn't so dark and cold, it would feel a lot like the Air Temples, where he could hear snatches of everyone's conversations on the wind. Aang rests a hand on Appa, who's gotten a little more used to the underground but still groans unhappily every now and then. "It's all right, buddy. We'll be out of here soon. I hope we find Katara and Atsuro."

As the badgermoles open up the wall of another tunnel, a green light shines around the corner--and he hears someone laugh, a kid around his age.

"Who's there?"

"Just us!" everyone choruses.

"No, ahead of us in the other tunnel. There's someone else with a light--" A flash of a white skirt and green and gold brocade. "There, see? It's a girl. Hey!" He hops off Appa's saddle with torch in hand and turns the corner. "Come with us, we're going out of the tunnels!"

"Aang, stay with the group!" Sokka shouts.

"But she'll get lost--" As he turns the corner, he sees the tunnel is a dead end and no one is there.

"There you are!" Sokka grabs his shoulder. "We've already gotten separated once. You're sticking with us if I have to put a leash on you." He mutters something about lone wolves and packs. Aang looks over his shoulder as he's led away, but the tunnel remains empty. He wonders if it was a ghost. And he realizes he isn't cold anymore.

\- - -

Zuko slips for what seems like the thirtieth time, but this time Sachi squawks and beats her flightless wings, sending her owner toppling in a confusion of limbs. "Sachi, no--ah!"

The ostrich horse shrieks and there's a scrabble of rocks and something thuds as it hits the ground. Katara steps in to take Sachi's reins and leads her a few paces away before he kneels beside Zuko. The firebender is on her side, clutching her wrist. "Is it broken?"

She prods it gingerly and winces. "Yes."

"I can set it," Katara says. "I could heal it too."

"It's a broken wrist. Hardly life-threatening."

"True." She eyes him warily. "But it would be very strange for you to still have an unset, unhealed wrist after spending several hours with a healer as your only company."

"I could--" She has to stop and think. "I could say I didn't notice it until we parted ways. I am supposed to be unable to speak."

"I'm trained to recognize pain even if people can't speak." She frowns. He tries another point. "Do you have any idea how long it will be before you find another healer?"

"In Omashu? The day we get there, most likely."

"We saw Fire Nation soldiers going through the Kolau pass," Katara says. "Omashu might be a battleground right now."

"Well, I would ask the soldiers--"

From the way she bites off her retort, Katara thinks she's just thought of the exact same thing he has: "And would they believe two people dressed in plain Earth Kingdom clothes saying they were Fire Nation royalty?"

She frowns again, then sighs. "Most likely not."

Katara thinks of Sangok, always rushing ahead, falling into the same patterns. If he responds to her jabs with frustration, or if he needles her pride, she will lose her temper, storm ahead, and possibly get hurt again. But practicality seems to be a neutral ground. So far--even if Zuko hasn't agreed yet--she also hasn't refused. It's like walking on thin ice where the shore is close enough that a few careful steps will get him to safety. Or get Zuko to safety, actually. He's never met anyone who was so determined not to accept help.

So he waits. And his patience is rewarded with Zuko telling him the reason without being asked. She says, "I cannot repay you."

"What?"

"You saved my life and I have not returned the favor. If I accept your help again, I will be in your debt twice over. The only way to repay a life debt is... marriage... or saving your life. The--the first is--" Her throat works. "You are not of age, we are not in either of our countries, there's no way to officiate it. It's impossible. And I have no way of saving your life at the moment."

Oh.

"In the Water Tribe, I'm the one in debt to you," he explains--or rather, reminds her. "Because I almost killed you when you couldn't fight back."

"How strange."

"So, since both of our codes are putting us in debt to the other--we could call it even."

"We could," Zuko says.

"And then you'd only have to pay me back for a broken wrist. But it's my job to heal people, and a broken wrist isn't difficult work. It takes a few moments at most." As long as the patient isn't arguing with him over honor debts, that is.

"When we get out of this mountain," Zuko decides. "I will not follow you or the Avatar, nor will I alert any Fire Nation soldiers to your presence. You have my word."

"That's more than enough."

She nods and holds out her arm. He sets it--to a wince but no other sign of pain--and finally heals her broken wrist. He doesn't want to test his luck by helping her up, so he gets up and waits as she climbs to her feet.

When he takes a step, Zuko says, "Wait." He looks back and she's standing there awkwardly. "Would you--" He lets her collect words. "I don't want to break anything else. And you are the only one who can see here. Would you help me through the tunnels?" She pauses, then adds, "Please?"

He steps a little closer. "I'm holding my arm out on your right side, a little above your elbow."

She doesn't take his hand--she rests hers in the crook of his arm and with the other she holds Sachi's reins. The chill to her skin is still there, strange and lingering, but after a few minutes of walking, it dissipates.

"Thank Agni," Zuko says. "We must be close to the surface again."

When they reach a cluster of crystals in the shape of a door, Zuko pulls her hat over her eyes and tilts her chin down.

"Katara!" comes Aang's yell. The airbender tackles him in a hug. "We just got out! Are you okay?"

"Atsuro!" Li--or rather, Iroh--calls. "And Sachi, come here."

Now is the moment of truth.

Katara watches as Zuko walks straight past Aang, ignores Appa and Momo and the badgermoles, and nods briefly to Sokka and the nomads.

"What's wrong?" Aang asks.

"He broke his wrist," Katara says. "It should be fine. Try not to break it again."

Zuko waves a hand irritably--the one she broke--and helps her uncle into the saddle and leads them both down the pass. But they turn to the trail that leads south, instead of to the gorge that houses the city. "I am sad to say that we cannot accompany you to Omashu," Iroh says, still using his false accent. "We are trying to avoid war, and those soldiers are quite close indeed."

"Perfectly understandable," Sokka says.

Knowing that it's actually Zuko under that hat, Katara thinks something must have changed in the months since they left the North Pole. Even if she's banished, they're not on Fire Nation territory, so she shouldn't have to avoid the soldiers. But she remains silent in her guise of a young man, going further away from Aang, further from the path that leads to Omashu, and Katara relaxes. Whatever's changed, at least she's keeping her word.

"Farewell, young travelers!" Iroh bids them. "Chong! Do travel with us for a time--I have dearly missed music." Zuko sighs as the nomads strike up another song.

Sokka elbows Katara lightly. "You okay, Nuka?"

"Just tired." Katara says. "The torch went out while we were trying to find the way."

Aang and Sokka shudder.

"Well, at least we've finally gotten to Omashu! Now we can warn Bumi about the..." Aang's voice trails off as they see a Fire Nation flag already draped over the walls of Omashu. "Fire Nation..."

\- - -

Song has just finished collecting herbs from the garden and she's taking them to the kitchen for bundling up when her mother calls, "Song! Someone's coming up the path!" She puts the basket down and wipes her hands clean, then walks out the front door to meet them.

"Can I help you?"

"I was told you are a healer," comes a young woman's voice from behind an ostrich horse. "My father accidentally drank white jade and we need an antidote at once."

"Oh dear--of course we will," Song says. The man in question is heavy-set and white-haired, scratching at his rashes frantically, and while perhaps a bit pale not otherwise unusual. "I'll have you--" When his daughter steps out from behind him, Song's voice trails off abruptly.

She looks irritable and travel-worn, her bearing is stern, and she's wearing tattered men's clothes for some reason. All of these clash with her features: she is tall and slender, long-limbed, her complexion as pale as rice paper with a sharp, refined profile. A green kerchief is tied around her head and some of her black hair has escaped to frame her face. She's very beautiful.

"Is there a problem?" the stranger demands.

Song remembers there is a man in desperate need of an antidote and tries not to be flustered. "I'm sorry, I was thinking. What are your names?"

"I am Atsuko. My father is Li." She helps her father down from the ostrich horse with a deceptive strength. "Where are your stables?"

"Just tie your ostrich horse to the post in front, we'll take care of it later." The antidote must be administered as a salve. Song asks, "White jade is commonly mistaken as the white dragon bush and made into tea. Did you also happen to drink any of the--"

"No, because I am not a _tea fanatic_ like a certain _someone_." While Song tries not to be upset, Atsuko ties the reins quickly around the post and sets her hands on her hips.

"It was only a simple question, princess," Li chides her gently.

"And would you stop calling me that!"

"I apologize for my daughter, miss," Li says, laughing. "Please, do not take offense until I am better--Atsuko tends to be very cross when she is worried."

"Perhaps I shall stay out here with Sachi."

"All right," Song agrees. She helps Li into the healing room and starts organizing the herbs she'll need.

Li looks at the door, then smiles. "Just wait a moment or two."

Song has barely uncapped the lid of the salve before she hears the door slide open.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Atsuko asks.

\- - -

There is apparently nothing Zuko can do. While she does her best to stay out of the way, she can't help hovering as Song applies a green ointment to Iroh's throat and face that smells very foul. But when Iroh takes a full breath and sighs out in relief, Zuko relaxes. She can finally take in her surroundings.

Song is soft-spoken, kind, and beautiful. Not beautiful in the way that Zuko is accustomed to. The healer's face is round and her patient brown eyes almost childlike-wide, giving her a perpetual innocence that will make her look younger than her years. Fire Nation beauties have sharpened profiles and tend to grow into their looks as they mature. As Zuko will never grow into her looks, she feels the listless but unavoidable sting of jealousy that she always does when she sees a pretty girl around her age.

Yet Song is suitably different; even her fair skin is not the ivory tone favored by the nobility but a peach which is suited to lighter and more delicate colors instead of the heavy jewel tones that the Fire Nation court favors. So the jealousy doesn't grow into outright resentment.

Zuko offers to help cook and Song brightens. The sauce for the roast duck is one thing Zuko prides herself in. Ursa had taught Zuko to cook it. She made a roast duck that was so hot it made even Iroh's eyes water. The duck is already marinated, but Zuko sees cinnamon and ginger and that is enough for her.

"May I make a sauce for the duck?" She asks. "My mother taught me. We can put it in a bowl on the side."

Song tries the sauce with a fingertip and her wide eyes become perfect spheres of surprise. "Oh, it's so hot! But I like it." A flush rises in Song's cheeks; she looks radiant, it is so charming. Yet Zuko is not irritated as usual and answers with a faint smile of her own, the most she can manage. Song hums to herself as she prepares the rest of the meal and Zuko follows her, listening as the other girl chats with her mother.

After spending so long eating bland Earth Kingdom food, the first bite of the duck with her mother's sauce made her eyes water, and not from the heat. From the familiarity. She attempts to pass it off as such, however. Then Song asks, "You said your mother taught you--where is she?" and Zuko puts her bowl down, muttering some excuse as she flees out the door.

Zuko kneels on the porch, trying not to let her chin tremble or her eyes spill over. The world has gone watery and indistinct in her homesickness. She breathes deeply and doesn't notice the door slide open until Song is next to her.

"Can I join you?" She does not respond. Song sits down anyway and says, "Your father explained things to me. I know what you've been through. We've all experienced it. The Fire Nation has hurt you."

There's a flicker of motion on her left side, and Zuko realizes nearly too late that Song is reaching out to her scar. She turns her face away, dodging the touch, and at the same time wishes she hadn't. The last time anyone touched her was the waterbender several days ago--Katara, she reminds herself--and as gentle as he was, it was still purely practical. He set the bone and healed her wrist and did not linger. Song... Song had tried to touch her solely out of compassion, with affection, like a hug.

She hasn't hugged anyone since Azula months ago, and Azula had betrayed her. Zuko ducks her head. Her skin is burning and she has no idea what to do. Well, she does. She wants to tell Song she hadn't meant it, she had turned away out of habit. Could they try again?

"It's okay," Song says. "They've hurt me, too." She pulls up the leggings underneath her hanbok to reveal a burn scar spiraling up her calf.

It is not pity or compassion that Zuko feels. It is envy, to her great shame. A bitter snarl: _What does it matter? She is still beautiful if she wears a long skirt._ But even for her, that is unkind. She reminds herself that the pain would still have been excruciating. It is terrible to be jealous of someone simply because their injury is not as visible as hers.

"I'm sorry," Zuko says. But even to her own ears it sounds dead, completely devoid of real compassion. "You must have--I--" She rises, hating herself and her inability to speak properly. She wipes her eyes and gets up, heading to Sachi.

Song does not follow her.

As both their ostrich horse and Iroh need rest, they are staying the night. But Zuko has no desire to sleep on a patient's cot and takes the floor in the dining room. The young healer is so helpful it makes Zuko feel even more guilty. Song pads the floors with several quilts and a few pillows. She asks if Zuko is comfortable (no, but they are lucky to have somewhere to stay besides a clearing in the woods). She asks if Zuko would like a cup of water set out, in case she gets thirsty during the night. Would she like a bath? Do they need directions to Ba Sing Se?

The barrage of questions only stops when Zuko clears her throat. Song, midway through fluffing a pillow, leaps on it. "Yes, Atsuko?"

"I was not very well-spoken earlier," Zuko tells her. "I... I meant to say that I am very sorry for what the Fire Nation did to you--and also to thank you for showing your scar. I hate showing mine."

"Yours?" Song asks.

"You said the Fire Nation hurt both of us. I thought my father told you."

"He said your mother died. I didn't know you--" Song looks at her hair, at the fringe covering half of Zuko's face. A hand flies up to her mouth in shock. "Oh, _that's_ why you didn't--please, don't feel like you have to show me in return."

Zuko turns her face so Song can look at it fully, reaches up, and tucks her hair behind an ear. Song is a healer--her look of horror does not have disgust, only sympathy. She reaches out as if to examine it, then realizes what she's doing and says, "May I?"

Even though she knows this is not her father, Song is in fact the furthest thing from Ozai in the world, the thought of her scar being touched makes Zuko want to scream. "No. No. But--"

"What?"

"My hand," she says, holding it out. "Hold my hand, please."

Song takes it gently at first, then pulls her into a hug. And rather than shove the other girl away, Zuko clings to her shoulder. The touch burns and soothes at the same time. Like a bath that is almost, but not quite too hot. "It's all right," Song calms her, stroking her hair. "You're all right."

\- - -

In the morning, Song stands on the porch. Her mother hands Iroh a box of food and basks in the compliments he showers on her cooking. Zuko listens with half an ear. Most of her attention is on Song.

"I'd like to stay in touch, Atsuko," Song says. There's something fluttery in her voice. "I--I have so little time to make friends because of the war. And you're so different. Please, Atsuko, tell me you'll write us when you get to Ba Sing Se."

Atsuko, Song calls her. But that is a lie. If she were to reveal her true name Song would be the one to turn away in disgust or rage or simply sorrow. Moreover everyone Zuko has ever loved has a habit of dying or betraying her, save one. And Iroh is old. She knows she will see him die. She will have to bury him in the Earth Kingdom rather than give a proper pyre as Fire Nation royalty. After that, Zuko thinks--with despair and fear that she has no chance of holding back--she is to be alone. All alone for the rest of her life. She will become a hungry ghost with no one to give her any funeral rites. How can she let anyone else into the barbed wire trap that is her heart?

It is better to leave now. Before either of them gets attached, before Zuko's past catches up to them. "Thank you for your hospitality," she says coolly. "Be safe, Song."

"Don't fall into despair." Song takes her hand. Her voice is tender with the approach of tears. "There is still hope, Atsuko. The Avatar has returned."

Zuko pulls away, turns to where Iroh is waiting on Sachi. She keeps her head down. "Goodbye."

Song stays there for a moment, then takes careful, measured steps into the house. But as soon as the door shuts Zuko hears her run to her room.

Zuko walks. Iroh rides. There is silence for a long while as they reach the edge of town, deserted at this hour. Earth Kingdom people rise somewhat later. "I know you are very reserved," Iroh finally says. "But I also know that you are not unkind, and that was very much so."

"What would you have me do? If I write to her Azula could find us--she would raze this whole village to cinders and salt the fields."

"That may not--"

"And even if that doesn't happen, how could I ever reveal my true name? She'll hate me. This is the Earth Kingdom."

"Song is a kind and forgiving young woman. I do not think she has a hateful bone in her body."

"My mother was _kind,_ " Zuko spits, anger rising like bile in her throat. "She was _forgiving._ "

"So are you, my dear."

"And look at what happened to me!" Zuko is halfway to tears. More than halfway, if she is completely honest. But her stomach is boiling over with rage and pain and regret--and in a secret part of her, bone-deep loneliness. "Look at what happened to both of us! Aunt Ayako and Lu Ten are dead--Mother is dead--"

"You don't know that for sure--"

"Father sits the throne and Azula is his heir! Meanwhile--" She hates crying--she thought she had left it behind after her mother disappeared--but she has done so much of it that the act is nearly a reflex. "Meanwhile we have lost everything, Uncle! Our home, our birthrights, even our _names!_ What is there to hope for now?"

"Zuko--" Iroh dismounts with surprising agility and takes her hand. "Please, do not give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself."

"People only say that when they can't do anything!"

Zuko storms off on foot, unable to speak or even look at her uncle. She hears him sigh. He gets back into the saddle, but he hangs back. She cannot bear his patience--but she has no idea if she wants an argument, either. The sun is rising. She could still go back, run all the way back to the clinic and tell Song she had not meant it, she is sorry, she will keep in touch after all, and Song would forgive her. Song would write back. She would have a friend, even if only in letters. She would not be alone.

But... But the road stretches before her, cold and hard, replacing the taste of cinnamon and ginger sauce with dust and the salt of her tears. It is too long a journey, they have already lost a day and since Omashu has fallen they must get as far away as possible for their safety and hers.

It is for the best. She will not cry anymore, Zuko resolves, even as she wipes her face and cannot stop. After this she will be done. Tears will solve nothing.


	3. A Thousand Hungry Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:
> 
> \- Sex and sex work comes up. Zuko is approached by men who want to sleep with her, with or without pay, which sometimes extends to harassment as she refuses everyone. It aggravates her feelings of low self-worth and her body image issues, especially when they react to her scar. If any of this triggers you, I get it, PLEASE TURN BACK. But rape is not EVER going to be a plot point in this story. I am a survivor of sexual abuse, I've been through years of therapy for it. I'm not endorsing the way Zuko is being treated or using it for cheap drama. This is just what I decided would be the major difference between show Zuko and my Zuko in terms of how they interact with the world, so I'm exploring it. And maybe working through a couple of issues, yeah.
> 
> The Avatar time period seems to be vaguely 1850s (since Legend of Korra was the 1920s and Katara is about 70 there) and prostitution in China was only outlawed in 1949. Though sex workers could be educated and respected to some extent, it did still ruin a woman's reputation in terms of marriage--at least in the higher classes. Zuko very briefly considers joining a brothel out of despair and guilt, but Iroh points out that it's a bad idea to get a job which requires physical contact after she was traumatized by her own father burning off her face. Anyway, sex workers are people and they deserve to be treated with respect. I'll get off my podium now.

Katara is studying a healing scroll trying to see if only waterbenders can see the healing glow or if other benders can. The scroll is dull reading--and unlike their weapons, it can't be sharpened. He's already finished taking care of his and now it's Sokka's turn with the whetstone.

Aang is flying Appa, quiet after they had to leave Omashu and Bumi with it. Katara hates seeing him like this. He doesn't know which one is worse--to grow up fast as he and Sokka had to, or to be thrust from a peaceful world into the thick of a war before finishing childhood, like Aang, and not even have anyone left who remembers the old days.

Appa dips lower as if to land and both he and Sokka look up.

"It's a little early to make camp," Sokka says.

The Earth Kingdom has been hot, dry, and dusty for most of their travels, and while Katara got used to it, he is always glad for the ocean or a river. His spirit responds to it the same way his throat gets dry after going too long without a drink. Here there's water everywhere, mixed up with the earth and air. He finds he doesn't mind the thought of stopping for a little while.

"Hey, are you taking us down for a reason?" Sokka asks. Katara looks up when Aang doesn't answer. "Aang, why are we going down?"

"What?" Aang asks.

"Is something wrong?"

"I know this is going to sound weird, but I think the swamp is calling to me."

"No offense to the swamp, but I don't see any land there to land on."

"Bumi said to learn earthbending I would have to wait and listen, and now I'm actually hearing the earth. Do you want me to ignore it?"

Sokka peers over the saddle and says firmly, "Yes."

"Katara!"

"We have wolves, the Earth Kingdom has badgermoles," Katara points out. "Maybe it won't be too bad. There's enough water that I can freeze a spot for us to land."

"Aw, Nuka!" Momo scrambles inside Sokka's tunic as Appa groans. "Look, Appa and Momo don't like it here either. Three against two!"

"Momo tried to eat a white jade flower," Katara points out. That had not been a fun way for him to test the charcoal antidote.

"Two against two. And I'm the adult here, so I win."

"I've been several adults," Aang says. "Let me check in with my past lives." He puts his fists together and closes his eyes, then his eyes pop open with a grin. "The adults inside of me said yes, Aang, go into the swamp."

"Your eyes didn't glow," Sokka accuses him.

"How do you know?" Katara asks, just to be contrary--and to give Aang a little time to land while they're arguing. "You're not a bender. You couldn't see my healing."

"I've seen Aang's eyes glow before!"

"Oh, would you look at that?" Aang says as Appa lands on a raised network of roots. "We've landed."

\- - -

As they rest on the street of some small village, Zuko keeps her head down, teeth gritted. Her uncle is begging and she hates it, even as she eats the food Iroh buys with the kindness of strangers. "Spare coins for weary travelers?" he asks. One of the passersby tosses a handful of copper into Iroh's hat. Iroh thanks them all. For some reason she hates that even more.

"It is no shame to ask for help, daughter. And it is rude not to thank anyone kind enough to oblige." Zuko crosses her arms as Iroh asks a young lady, "Spare change for a hungry old man?"

The girl smiles, then sees Zuko and sobers. She pulls a gold piece out of her sleeve. When Zuko turns away, she hands it to Iroh. "Here you go."

"The coin is appreciated, but not as much as your smile!"

She laughs, then turns to Zuko. "And this is for you, miss." She pulls a fan out of her sleeve, the sort that opens rather than the pointed palm-leaf fans of the Fire Nation. "To keep cool," she says, with a sympathy that makes Zuko's eyes burn.

"It is rude to refuse a gift," Iroh reminds her.

That is exactly why she hates the fan. Money she could simply let Iroh take, but a gift? Given to her specifically? She must take it. She reaches out her hand, noting the other woman's nails--in the Earth Kingdom they file them into a flat edge. She called it ugly once. But really it is no different from the dragon points. They are both impractical styles that showcase how little work is done. Zuko cannot judge anyone now; she has dirt in every crease of her skin, her hair is still awkwardly growing out underneath the green kerchief she's tied over it. And her scar lurks underneath her fringe.

"Atsuko." Her uncle is never stern, but there is a hint of warning in his voice.

"Thank you," Zuko says. She tucks the fan into a saddlebag, resolving not to use it. She is exhausted. She would rather work in the fields from sunrise to sunset than beg. If only there was work to be had.

A man walks up to them, twiddling a coin in one hand. Zuko keeps her head down. "Hello," he says, as pleasant as can be. He has a sword on his back. Zuko eyes him warily and does not respond.

"Spare change?" Iroh asks, matching his tone.

"In a moment." Through the strands of her hair Zuko can see the stranger--peering at her with an intentness that unsettles her. "Now, I could have sworn I heard your daughter speak just now."

Zuko bristles. She turns away. Her dagger is in a saddlebag--she cannot get to it without alerting him. And even if she could use firebending, it is still weak. "She is ill," Iroh explains. "Speaking is quite difficult for her sometimes."

"And yet she's very pretty for a sick peasant girl."

"How kind of you," Iroh says shortly. It's clear he knows where the conversation is going, too. "Spare change, sir?"

"I'd pay you more than spare change for a moment of her time."

Iroh shakes his head. "Unfortunately, we are not--"

Zuko has had enough. She tilts her head so her scar is in full view. The man shudders and scurries away. Dully, it stings, even though she meant for it to happen.

"You did not need to do that," Iroh tells her gently.

"It got him away, didn't it."

\- - -

Katara changes his mind about the swamp. There is plenty of water, but it's still inescapably hot even though the tree canopy is thick enough to block out most of the sun. His clothes are sticky and he's not sure if it's from sweat or humidity and it's gross. They step into a patch of mosquitoes and it's even worse. Aang wanders ahead of them, trailing his hand through the vines, eyes glazed over as if in a trance. "This place feels alive," he whispers.

Sokka smacks his neck. "That's nice. It feels so alive it's sucking my blood."

"He's right," Katara tells his brother. "It feels like there are people watching us. Don't touch anything and especially don't cut it."

Sokka sighs in frustration and hacks at some vines, embedding his machete in the trunk of a tree.

"Don't!" Katara and Aang yell.

There's a clink of something hard. Something that isn't wood.

Sokka freezes.

Katara shoves his brother out of the way and pushes aside the vines encasing the trunk. As he feared, where Sokka's blade cut through the bark and vines, there is a sliver of bone and cloth--and the faint lingering smell of flesh that has long since rotted away. When he climbs up the tree he finds offerings in the forked branches, both recent and old. Flowers, fruits. There are offerings in other trees when he looks. And the trees themselves, he realizes, are aligned far too neatly in straight rows along the swamp waters to be anything besides intentionally planted.

"Please tell me there isn't a person in that tree," Sokka says.

"There's a person in that tree," Katara tells them. "The ground is too soft for graves--the water isn't deep enough to sink a body--" He looks down at the murky, slow waters. "And the current doesn't flow fast enough to take them to the ocean."

"Why are we always in a _graveyard?_ "

The sudden clamor of a lot of people coming their way startles everyone onto Appa. But then music floats up. On a large slow boat woven from reeds, a crowd of people are covered in ornaments woven from bird feathers and the brightest, largest flowers Katara's ever seen. Even the rowers are decked in it and a trail of smaller boats follow the big one. People are cheering and singing many different songs, and there's a fire on the big boat and tables of food.

"Looks like a party!" Aang says.

"In a graveyard?" Sokka demands.

"It sure is, sons!" someone shouts. "This here's a party in a graveyard, and you're invited!"

As cheerful as the funeral seems, Katara feels like they've been rude. "We don't want to impose," he says weakly.

"There's no imposing in a Foggy Swamp wake! It's good luck to meet new people at a funeral! Come on down, boys! Have some food!"

Sokka's stomach grumbles, but he and Aang still look a little hesitant, especially as the leading boat moves ahead and they can see a funeral bier surrounded by torches. "We'll trail behind on Appa if that's okay."

"At the very end of the procession!" Sokka adds. "For the least amount of imposing. Farthest from the body," he mutters.

This backfires a little since the entire gathering gets a chance to look at them and shout things like, "Pa, lookit that critter! Ain't he the biggest you ever seen?" and "I ain't never seen people shave their heads like that." They toss ropes, which Sokka and Katara use to climb into the closest boat, but Aang simply jumps over the railing to more shouts.

"Sure can jump far for a little un!" says an old man. "Now look at that head! So shiny I feel young again!"

"You probably are younger than me," Aang says. "I'm a hundred and twelve."

He laughs and pats Aang's shaved pate. "We'll get you some plates right quick, sonny."

"Here you go, honey," says a plump woman. And she hands them some large banana leaves folded into bowls.

"Um," Sokka says, looking from the pile of food to their leaves. "Do you have plates that are a little more... sturdy?"

"We can't take nothing back with us," they explain. "Got to fit in with the swamp or rot away."

"Do you have vegetarian food?" Aang asks.

"Of course we do!" She piles greens and fruits onto his leaf bowl. "What about you boys? You eat meat?"

"Absolutely," Sokka says at once, to a lot of laughter.

People start piling food onto their leaf plates. "There you go! Now here in these parts it's bad luck to take food off the boats during a wake. You look like you're all growing, so eat up!"

"Look at them blue eyes," a little girl giggles. Her eyes are green. "Ain't never seen blue eyes."

"We're from the Water Tribe."

"Water Tribe!" they shout. "Then we're kin!" They get a lot of claps on the back and hugs, and even though Aang says he's an Air Nomad he gets pulled in anyway because "It don't hurt no one to get hugs", and the festivity is contagious.

"You a waterbender, anak?"

"No bending here," Sokka says through a mouthful of meat. "But my brother--wait, did you just call me Ânak?"

"I sure did, honey!"

Katara chokes on his food laughing.

"Now what's got you hollering like that?"

"Why'd you call me Grandma?" Sokka asks. "That's what Ânak means in Water Tribe."

"Grandma? 'Round here anak means baby." The woman puts her hands on her hips, but not with any real snap to it. "We also say bata, but maybe I should call you bato."

"That means stone."

"And here it means stone." They pause, then a collective laugh spreads. "Well maybe we're closer kin than we thought!" One of the old ladies comes up and asks them something. It sounds familiar, but more like Earth Kingdom--and Aang perks up when he recognizes a word. They still have no idea what she's saying, so he and Sokka shake their heads.

\- - -

Zuko is proud. That cannot be disputed. She is, in fact, arrogant. And willful, yes, and more than a little self-centered. But she does have a duty to her family, a duty which she has been shirking dreadfully. She has been letting her old uncle demean himself and play the beggar while she sits there doing nothing. Something must change, and she cannot depend on the universe to take care of her. If there is no work she is willing to do, then she must find the will.

And here, the only work left is on the outskirts of the city. The yūkaku, the pleasure district. This is a quite poor town, so it's only one house. Zuko does not want to be a pauper or a whore, but as Iroh is begging she may as well do the other.

There is nothing Zuko can do about the fact that she is still wearing men's clothes, still has dirt on her face. But surely they have had other women like her, in need of a bath and a change of clothes. As for the scar, she must tell the owner, but she does not have to _show_ it. In fact, showing it would be counterproductive. She fidgets with her hair to hide her scar as best she can. She hopes they will not look too unfavorably on it. She hopes they have oil or wax, but she has no idea what Earth Kingdom women use in place of it. And above all she hopes something will happen that will make her turn away.

It is exhausting to imagine how the night would begin. The ladies in charge would bathe Zuko, examine her like the mistresses back at the Academy for Girls on inspection day. Or, Zuko thinks of the old courtiers, Li and Lo. They had been Fire Lady Ilah's ladies-in-waiting. They had a lack of personal space and a bluntness that only came with advanced age, yet none of Iroh's compassion, and finished each other's sentences seamlessly so one could never tell who spoke. When Zuko was young she had been terrified of them.

She can imagine them, unchanged from when she was a girl. "High cheekbones, yes!" They might catch her chin in a gnarled hand to turn it rather than asking her, so any compliments would still be abhorrent. Azula might preen if she was in a good mood. But Mother had not liked them either. "A white complexion, very good!" Perhaps they would lift a lock of her shorn hair disapprovingly. "Look at this! Her hair looks as if it was cut by a scythe! And that scowl! Not attractive to men, not at all."

Suffocating.

But she stood it in the Academy. She can stand it now, if she constantly reminds herself that she has no choice in the matter and it must be done or she will be lazy. (She has not thought about the men. She refuses to think about it because if she does, she will lose her nerve.)

She has been standing on the other side of the street, frozen, for several minutes.

"Atsuko!" comes Iroh's voice.

Among her hopes of some vague event to make the choice for her, her uncle finding her was the absolute lowest on the list. She had hoped for something more along the lines of a storm or a fire or another natural disaster, something that did not involve explaining to Iroh why she is standing across the street from the only brothel in the city.

"What--" A man and his friends approach the doorman and pay the fee, laughing loudly. When Iroh catches sight of it he sobers. He takes her arm and tugs her away, only increasing the guilt in her stomach. "You do not need to do that."

"You beg," she says. "You were Crown Prince and now you beg in the street. What makes that so different from--this?"

"Begging aligns with my nature," Iroh tells her. "It is no blow to my pride and so I do it freely. You are the one who hates the thought, not I."

"I am young. If I hide my scar, I would--" No tears, she thinks. She must be practical. No tears. "I would make more money than you."

"It is not a question of money but the fact that your nature is not the same as mine. You hate being touched, especially by men, and especially your face--"

"Don't."

"--Both of which are completely inavoidable in the yūkaku, and I wonder why you are forcing this cruelty upon yourself when you would never stand for it being done to anyone else."

Gods and spirits, it is hard enough to try and persuade Iroh to let her go in when she has only halfway convinced herself to walk this far.

"I can't stay idle while you--"

"Believe me when I say that I would rather go hungry than force you to do something which would break your spirit. We will never be so desperate as that." She can't move. Iroh puts a hand on her shoulder and she bristles. He lifts it away easily. "Wait until tomorrow, dear," he says. "If you can hold out your hand and ask for money from a stranger, I will believe that you can enter the yūkaku of your own free will and not sheer desperation."

She flinches at the word _desperation._

\- - -

The little girl Katara met is named Nahi and she heads up to the front of the procession with her mother, whose name is Landa.

"Come with us, blue-eyes," Landa says. "My baby said you got the healing hands. We'd like it if you kept watch with us."

Katara looks down at his hands, then at Nahi. "How did you know?"

"I got them too," she says. She raises a cup of water, also woven from leaves, and makes it glow. "My daddy, he took first watch over Pop-Pop since that's his daddy and not Momma's."

"We got to keep the dead company for nine days and nights," Landa says. She keeps her voice low and gathers her skirt in one hand, gently stepping over and between the sleeping people. "Can't let the torches go out nor leave Pop-Pop by himself. This here's the second night. We take it in shifts." Some other people are also making their way to the big boat and greet her easily.

"Hey Landa, who's this?"

"Traveler got invited to the wake. He's kin--from one of the other Water Tribes."

"That's some good luck there."

The men clap him on the shoulders as quietly as that greeting can be. Instead of playing music like the daytime watchers, they play a game called sintak with stones, bones, and shells. They teach Katara how to play for stories instead of money. Their stories are vivid, expressive, and fiercely contested by other people who were there. "That ain't what happened, no sir! Now _here's_ what happened!" and both winners and losers end up telling their own version anyway.

On Katara's first loss--or win, he's still not entirely sure how the game works--he says, "In the other Water Tribes it's nighttime for three months straight in winter." They are contrary in a playful way, responding with gasps and accusations that he's pulling their leg. "It's true! We use the moon to tell time instead." Well that makes sense, is the grudging consensus. "And we get three months of daylight in summer." They shake their heads and ask how his people possibly sleep. "Stay inside and hide under the blankets."

Landa laughs as she replaces one of the torches. "Don't need three months of sun to do that. Ain't that right, anak?"

Nahi nods, but it turns into a slow droop. Katara notices there are blankets tucked under the seats and he drapes one over her shoulders. She fusses and pushes it away. "Ain't tired," she insists, yawning. "Keeping Pop-Pop company."

"You sure are, anak."

"Doing a good job too, baby girl," one of the men says. "Look at me, can't stay awake one more minute." He gives a fake yawn and snore as he counts the stones. Nahi is asleep before the next round starts.

\- - -

In the morning Iroh takes off his hat and begs without Zuko, as usual. Instead of blocking him out, ignoring him, she studies him as she studied anything else--language, dance, cooking.

There is a rhythm to it, she learns. Surprisingly, he picks out the people dressed more like them, not wealthier folk. "Why don't you ask the people who are well off?" Zuko asks. "They can give more."

"They do not know what it is to be hungry," he responds. "They are less inclined to be generous. Watch." He spies a woman from across the streets with her daughters, all of them dressed in silks, but they cross the street to avoid him. And it is the same for the wealthy farmer who turns up his nose and tells them to work real jobs.

The only well-dressed person who gives them money is an old man who peers over his spectacles at them and shuffles over. "I have lived here sixty-two years," he says. His voice has gone thin and reedy with age. He empties his purse into Iroh's hat--all gold coins and silver. "This is my county. I know all of the faces. Yours are very new. Have you come to stay?"

"For the night, perhaps. We would like to reach Ba Sing Se. Omashu has fallen to the Fire Nation."

"Yes, I heard," the magistrate says. "One does not like to believe such things, but I suppose King Bumi has gotten old. He was already crowned when I was young." He looks at Zuko. "No other family?"

"No, my wife died years ago," Iroh says. "As well as my eldest son. Only my daughter is left now."

"My condolences." The man has already emptied his purse, so Iroh is clearly making conversation rather than wheedling more gold out of him. As they have nowhere to be, and Sachi is tired, Zuko cannot leave. "I must say your daughter is quite a beauty," the magistrate says, and she flinches and looks at the ground. "I beg your pardon! I meant it as a compliment."

"She has received many compliments and she is wary of them. Our change in fortune has been hard on her."

"Yes, adjusting takes time, especially for the young. I wonder why she is not married."

"A falling out with my brother."

The magistrate tuts. "Older or younger?"

"Younger. She spoke out against some business he was doing--bad enough that I do not blame her--and he saw fit to drive off all of her potential suitors."

"Spoke out against your brother? Yet I have not heard one word from her."

"Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying goes."

"Well, miss, rest assured that I have no teeth left to bite. These were a gift." He opens his mouth to reveal a set of false teeth, which are the pure white of polished ivory laid in a frame of gold wire. Zuko's mouth quirks up. "What is your name?"

"Atsuko, sir."

"A pretty name for a pretty girl," he says fondly. "I know what it is to be rich and then poor. My wealth is tied to this land and it has not always been bountiful. But my soul did not shatter, and I can see yours is made of even stronger stuff. You will endure this, little dove."

It's the kindness that makes her look up at him and say, "Thank you, Xianzhang."

The magistrate tells them of an inn nearby. What he's given is enough for three nights.

Zuko only realizes after she has groomed Sachi and bathed and settled in for the night that she had forgotten all about Iroh's test.

Though she no longer hates the thought of begging with a fury, she thinks ahead to when the money runs out and knows she will not be able to hold out her hand. If Iroh tried to make her, she would resist kicking and screaming and she would hate him instead. No, it is clear to Zuko now. Even without her scar--she thinks bleakly as she brushes her hair that it would lower her prices--it does go against her nature. She is uneasy with the concept of marriage alone. And women in the yūkaku serve more than one man in a night. The very thought makes her skin crawl. It would break her spirit, and not slowly.

The desperation had snuck up on her, that was all.

\- - -

Around the third hour into the night vigil, Katara starts to get fuzzy. Landa began a round of scary stories after her daughter fell asleep. There are mermaids in the swamp. Whether hideous or beautiful, they kill humans by drowning them and eating the bodies, and can only be stopped by the tail of a stingray--or falling in love. "But how do you get a mermaid's heart anyway?" Katara tells a story about a graverobber who incurred the wrath of the spirit he stole from until his brother gave the offering back.

He's holding the stone about to toss it, and the next moment he's got a blanket around his shoulders. The others are talking quietly, refueling torches or dozing, but one small form is missing. "Where's Nahi?" They laugh at something, not hearing him. Katara gets up blearily, filled with urgency--a child missing on the water is not something to ignore, especially not after the mermaid story--and bends his way down to the waterline with a column of murky water.

By the root of one of the trees lining the swamp, a grave tree, he finds Nahi and calls to her. "Get back on the boat."

She turns and the tree behind her is covered in frost. "What's wrong with the water?" Nahi asks.

"It's frozen," he tells her. "That's okay. You probably did it on accident." He stretches a hand out to the tree and melts the ice.

"Katara!"

"It's fine, see? I melted it. Now let's get back to the others. You can't leave your Grandpa alone, remember?"

"Katara!"

"What?"

"She's calling you," Nahi tells him. "It's your kin. You got to keep her company."

"Who--"

"Katara!"

He's at the base of the tree before he knows it, grabbing the vines around the trunk with his bare hands and ripping them away. There's more than one layer and he claws at them, getting bark under his nails before a strand of hair escapes--long brown hair--and white fur and the blue leather of a parka. "Mom?" he asks, hardly daring to hope. The tree groans and loosens as if a knot was cut. A mitten falls out--a bare hand reaches out of the tree and he grabs it. "Mom! Mom, Anaana! I'm getting you out--"

"Katara." He opens his eyes to find himself still on the boat, the blanket fallen around his lap. Nahi stares at him with wide, serious green eyes. "You fell asleep."

"I'm sorry."

"No worries, son," one of the men tells him. "Why do you think we're all here?"

"You had a dream about your momma," Nahi says. "I know because I was in it." Katara nods. "When'd she die?" They're not ten feet from a dead body, which she's spoken to several times as if he was still alive, but Katara feels a lump in his throat.

"Baby girl," someone chides her. "Don't you get into everyone's business like that."

"She got the fire in her eyes," Landa says, both proudly and apologetically. Katara's never heard of that saying. "More than halfway to being priestess already, Lelang says. But you ain't priestess yet so right now you're just being nosy. What do we say?"

"Sorry, Katara," Nahi says. "I didn't mean to make you sad."

Katara smiles tiredly.

"You don't got the spirit sight, but something 'bout your hands." One of the men reaches a hand out. "Waterbender, but something else too."

"Healing hands, Nahi said."

"Let me see for myself, Landa. Can't always have the baby girl tell us things before they happen." Katara turns his hand palm up and reaches out, just to stop the argument. "Mm-hmm. Healing hands."

"Do men heal here?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Women shave their heads too where you come from?" Landa asks.

"They--" His mother's hair spilling out of the tree-coffin bursts into his thoughts. "They leave it long and braid it or put it in a knot."

"It's good to have a dream about the dead, anak," the man says. "She's thinking about you."

\- - -

Zuko stares at a stall of used clothing in the market, counting her money. The vendor eyes her hopefully, not making things any easier. She could buy everything else first and then come at the end of the day and the prices would likely be cheaper. None of them are particularly interesting, she simply wants to wear women's clothing. It has been long enough that she can drop the disguise. Also, she'd be able to wash her clothes without being naked.

"Hello, dear," comes a woman's voice. She turns to find a middle-aged woman, heavy-set, wearing the heavy makeup in style for the Earth Kingdom. They use powders here, brightly crushed pigments that line their eyes, rouge their cheeks, and their lips are a very deep scarlet. It's quite garish to Zuko, who was taught that makeup had to be unnoticeable. But seeing as the only dust on Zuko's face is from the road, she has no room to speak.

The woman doesn't seem to be in search of clothing--not from this stall, anyway. Her clothes are much brighter and she has the blunt-tipped nails. "May I help you?" Zuko asks.

"I saw you on the street the other night," the woman says. "I own the house, see. Even from afar, I thought--what a very pretty girl that is! How tall, and her skin is so pale!" It seems everyone's compliments have an ulterior motive. Not that it was any different at the capital--the motive is simply much more direct in her current condition. Zuko turns away. "And up close you seem even more elegant. Why, anyone could see that your family was of much importance and simply fell on hard times."

If she only knew. Zuko says, "Thank you, but I must be going."

"Now, now, have a listen." They certainly are quite stubborn here in the Earth Kingdom. "Your father might have scared you away, but there's no shame in our work. My house is not for street girls, we ourselves are very cultured. Men will be falling at their feet to have you as their escort, I assure you!"

"You'll change your mind in a moment."

"Nonsense! I've never seen a girl that gets uglier with a bath and a change of clothes--oh."

Zuko had brushed her hair out of her face. She gives the madam a bitter smile and turns back.

"Did a man do that to you?" Zuko's smile falls at the sympathy. She nods. "Well, how long are you staying?"

"A day or two."

"I might still have work for the night."

Surprised, Zuko asks, "What kind?"

"What can you do?"

Embroidery and writing, judging from the madam's ornate clothes, would be appreciated, but they require quite a long time for payment and they must get to Ba Sing Se. For Zuko to style hair or makeup would make everyone uncomfortable, not only because she is unfamiliar with the styles. So she falls on the universal woman's task: "I can cook."

"Very well." She waves Zuko along. "Name?"

"Atsuko." The madam laughs as if it was a joke and Zuko bristles. "I'm sorry?"

"I call my girls hens, while the men are drakes. And here you are, a little dove. What jokes the universe tells."

"And what may I call you?"

"Āyí Fu."

\- - -

On the fourth day of their trip down the swamp, Sokka is in a boat full of old people. They were talking with Aang about his people, and now Aang is asleep on Appa. The skybison himself is being towed by some ropes on his saddle.

"Your name's Sokka, right son?" Sokka nods to the old man who asked him. "Now who's that pretty lady following you?" Sokka looks around, hoping it isn't one of the people in the boat. The man shakes his head. "The one who ain't with us. Young, but with white hair."

"She's dead."

"Why you got a cloud over you? She your--"

"Don't be nosy, baby," the old man's wife admonishes. "We all got a ghost or two and if he don't want to talk, he don't want to talk."

"Thank you, Grandma," Sokka says.

"Him, though." She points to Aang, sleeping on Appa. "That ain't no baby boy. He older than twelve. Older than a hundred and twelve. And he got a thousand ghosts following him, bless his heart." How do these people know so many things? They're old, but they're also complete strangers.

"That's why we met you here in the graveyard," the man says decisively. "They need to move on, but he couldn't do the rites. They saw our food and got hungry. Least for the vegetables."

"They're his people," Sokka says. "Can you put souls to rest with another tribe's rites?"

"Well you ain't our people but you eat our food just fine," the grandma teases him.

"Got to do what you got to do. If you ain't got kin, you got friends."

They meet Nono Huu, an elder, along with the priestess Lelang Dakila.

"Well, well, if it isn't the young man who woke up Grampa Kai."

"I'm sorry, sir," Sokka says, bowing. "I didn't know."

"Well your brother and your friend had an inkling. Maybe you should listen to them a little closer." Still, Huu thumps him on the shoulder. "But who am I to tan your hide? I done a good job of being dumb when I was your age myself. At least you're sorry about it now."

\- - -

The kitchen of a brothel is no different from any other kitchen Zuko has been in. It's crowded and noisy, filled with steam and smoke. It's the warmest she's ever been since coming into the Earth Kingdom.

She's given the simple, tedious task of making dumplings. All of the knives are quite dull, so she scrounges up a whetstone and sharpens one for her work. In between batches of onions and garlic, she hones the rest of them.

"What's a girl like you doing in the back of the house?" Someone asks, a girl a bit younger than her. "Āyí usually puts the pretty ones in front even if they're not--"

Zuko turns and tilts her head, causing a wave of silence to ripple through the kitchen.

"I don't know what you're talking about," someone quips, though she hadn't spoken. "That's the biggest beauty mark I've ever seen."

They all laugh, surprising Zuko with how friendly it sounds. Nearly the way her uncle teases her. She's still given a wide berth, and for whatever reason, she's thankful for it. She hasn't quite figured out what her false backstory will be. Her uncle had done most (all) of the talking and she doesn't remember quite remember how he pared off bits of the truth to make their tale more anonymous without actually lying. That was something her mother could do as well.

The same girl comes up to her as she's sharpening the other knives, timid and sympathetic--but also very, very curious. "I saw another girl who had acid thrown in her face. This looks a lot like that."

She hadn't known there were other types of scars that could result in this. But, well, there's no point in lying as long as she doesn't say the name. "It was a firebender."

"Was it from Omashu?" she asks. "We're getting a lot of people from around there."

Zuko shakes her head and ignores all subsequent questions.

"Suk-Ja, leave her alone," someone chides her.

"Sorry." She scurries away.

Zuko has finished chopping the onions and tossed them into the ground meat mix. She's contemplating the sauce. They have no chili oil here for the sauce and the herbs are quite wilted. She also can't find the sauce bowls. Then Suk-Ja appears at her elbow. "What are you making?"

"A sauce," Zuko says.

"Are you from Silla? They fry dumplings there and serve them in sauce, I heard."

"No, I'm from--" She realizes Suk-Ja is trying to pry some more, so she corrects herself. "Somewhere else. How do you cook dumplings here?"

"Boiling," she says. "And we put them in soup."

Ah. That bland soup they eat day after day. That would also explain why she can't find sauce bowls.

"You used a lot of garlic, though," Suk-Ja says. "And they're supposed to be round for soup. Why are they shaped like bananas?"

Zuko sighs. "These are the frying kind." They are the wrong shape and the wrappers are a bit too thick for soup, so she might as well make some sort of sauce. Soy sauce, vinegar, crushed ginger, pepper. She finds a bottle of turmeric and whips up a small batch. It tastes fine. Still flat and boring, but leagues better than plain broth. And making it too hot would be suspicious. "Where are the sauce bowls?" Please, Agni, let them have sauce bowls.

"We don't have any."

Zuko starts opening cabinet after cabinet and finds absolutely nothing besides regular bowls, plates, and chopstick holders, so she ends up making a large batch in one bowl and drizzling a spoonful or two of the sauce in the corner of a small stack of dumpling platters. When she returns to clean up the chopping board, Suk-Ja has dipped her finger in the test sauce. "Mm! Spicy!"

"Spicy," she mutters. The woks are all being used, so Zuko steams the dumplings and arranges them to order, sending them out through the little window.

Āyí Fu pokes her head into the kitchen after a few minutes. "Who made those dumplings?"

"The new girl," everyone says at once, pointing to her. Zuko nods.

"Tell us how you made them before you go. It's a hit with the men. Very spicy--good for the chi." She winks.

"You're not staying?" Suk-Ja asks.

"I'm going to Ba Sing Se with my father. In a few days, we'll be off again."

"Oh, that's a long way."

Zuko grits her teeth, hoping the song is not as popular as she thinks it is.

It is.

Someone sings, "It's a long long way--"

She grabs a piece of paper and a brush and scribbles down the dumpling and sauce recipe. Everyone laughs.

Her pay is a set of decent clothes for travel and a handful of silver pieces, as well as a bowl of rice and fish, since all of her dumplings were taken by customers. She changes at once, glad to finally be out of the old tattered man's outfit, but she still keeps it just in case. When she leaves it's through the back door and she takes the wrong alley to the front, so by the time she finally reaches the mainway, the food has gotten cold and of course they have no way to warm it without giving themselves away. What she finds strange is, despite being in the yūkaku--or qīnglóu as they call it here--and wearing women's clothing, not a single man approaches her.

"Atsuko!" Iroh exclaims.

"I found a kitchen," Zuko says, holding up the food. "I finally got a change of clothes."

"You see," Iroh tells her. "The universe is not so unkind." He takes a closer look. "Your hair is out of your face."

"Oh."

She'd put a headband on during her work because it kept getting in the way--and she'd left it on. That would explain why everyone avoided her. Zuko is torn whether to keep it like that or hide her scar again. For one thing, it's the prime identifying mark on her wanted poster. But at the same time, a disfigured girl in rags nearly eradicates attention. And she's learned, though it makes her stomach roil with anger, that such scars are not quite as uncommon as she thought they would be.

She ends up dividing her time between having her hair tied out of her face in crowded places, and left loose when she thinks they might run into Fire Nation troops. The only people who approach her when her hair is up do so out of pity--which she tolerates through clenched teeth and only from other women, who usually aren't trying to get under her skirt. They give her food which she shares with her uncle, they give her old worn skirts and aprons which she mends and wears or rips up to use for bandages. She still cannot bring herself to _ask_ for help. But if they offer, she can find the will to accept it.

\- - -

"Now little 'uns--" Huu smiles at them. "And maybe not so little 'uns. This here's the most important part of the funeral. You got to walk under the bier and don't look back." Sokka looks at Aang, who looks at Katara, who looks back at Sokka, who sighs. "That there's a goodbye from us to Pop-Pop, and any other spirits following--" Huu casts a knowing glance at them all. "So everyone can move on proper. Now we've all got people we lost, people we loved, folks we think are gone. But the swamp tells us they're not. We're still connected to them. Time is an illusion and so is death."

They go last, out of a sense of propriety. And maybe a little bit because they want someone to say they don't have to. But after everyone's gone under the dead man, they make room for the three travelers and usher them forward.

Sokka, the oldest and tallest, has to crouch to get under the bier. He starts crying so hard that he can't get up and an old man on the other side helps him off his knees. 

Katara thinks of Kya as he walks under the bier. He feels the shape of his mother's hand against his cheek. He closes his eyes for a moment and feels safe and warm and loved. Landa and Nahi are waiting for him, not looking back--he takes a hand from each one and they walk him to their boat.

He almost forgot about Aang, a few steps behind him--Aang who lost an entire people, who lets out a scream that rattles Katara's bones.  
  
He nearly turns. "No, Katara!" Nahi insists, clutching his hand and tugging. "We gotta get over the water first!"

"That's right, honey." Landa gets behind him and grabs his shoulders, steering him forward. "And Aang got to make his own way."

Aang sounds like he's being tortured. Where Katara didn't cry for his mother, an old wound, now a mostly healed scar that twinges now and then when bumped, he cries with Aang for the Air Nomads. A wind rises, pelting him with stinging needles on his bare arms.

"I know, baby," Landa says, still pushing Katara towards the boat. "I know. But don't look back till you're on the boat."

"Avatar Aang's got a thousand ghosts following him," Huu says. "He's got to shed a thousand tears for them all. Ain't no skipping over it--but don't you worry. He'll feel better once it's done." People comfort Aang--the sobs come from low to the ground, muffled by the earth and swamp grass.

"Katara!" Sokka calls him from the boat and Katara focuses on his brother's voice. "You've only got a few more steps and then you can look back."

"What if he can't get up?" Katara asks.

"They'll pick him up and cover his eyes," Nahi tells him.

"We've done it for bigger folk. You want me to cover yours?" Katara shakes his head and climbs up onto the boat. He sits down for a second to catch his breath and Sokka sits with him, hand on his shoulder. Then Katara stands to look over the railing and he's devastated to find Aang, tears spent, but still curled up on the ground with his knees drawn up, refusing to move. Huu kneels next to him, talking quietly.

"Hey Aang!" Sokka shouts.

"Sokka! What are you--"

He shouts louder: "Aang!" Which finally makes Aang look up. "If you can make it to the boat without looking back, I'll give you three copper pieces!"

Aang laughs. He gets up, wiping his eyes.

"Don't listen to him!" Katara yells. "He doesn't have three copper pieces!"

"I totally do!"

"I'm the one in charge of all the money!"

"I bet three of _Katara's_ copper pieces--"

"If you make it here without looking back, Sokka will give Appa his next bath!"

"Wait--no, I don't--!"

"Sounds good!" Aang opens his glider and soars over to them. In a few moments he's landed on the deck.

"Appa's been swimming in the swamp for days!" Sokka laments.

"That's why I took it." Aang laughs and throws his arms around both of them, then gets quiet. There's still a strong breeze coming from the direction of the gravesite.

Katara looks back to where Huu and the priestess are opening up the tree with axes. "You can look back now, Aang."

He holds on tighter. "I don't want to. Not yet."

Sokka extracts himself from the hug to grab some of the leftovers. Katara lets Aang rest his head on a shoulder until something makes the Avatar look up. He peers into the distance; Katara turns to see nothing. "What is it?"

Aang is quiet. "A shadow."

"What did this shadow look like?"

"A girl dressed in green. There was a flying boar next to her."

Katara's heart twinges. "Was she an old friend?"

"No," Aang says. "I've never seen her." He looks back at Huu, turned away from the boats, helping the priestess wrap the dead man in a shroud before they put him in the tree. "Time is an illusion. And I'm the Avatar. So maybe--maybe she's someone I'll meet in the future."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tree coffins, and the nine day vigil over the body, is a very old funeral practice in the Philippine Islands, specifically the Tagalog people, who I am descended from. Unfortunately none of my family actually practices it anymore, they're Catholic Christian. But I just thought it'd be neat to include some of my personal heritage since the Foggy Swamp tribe has stilt-houses, too.


	4. Best Behavior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so late. I was really torn on whether to have the Earth Rumble in this chapter or not and ended up shifting it to the next because this is where I start to really delve into heavier themes from both POVs.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: Katara goes onto a battlefield to find injured soldiers after a battle has occurred. At one point a soldier is dug out of a collapsed trench and has nightmares about it, though they're only mentioned in passing. There is a history of acid attacks in the Earth Kingdom, explained a little further as part of Chin the Conqueror's method of branding political opponents. It is paralleled by gendered violence in both civil conflicts and the Fire Nation war.
> 
> For Zuko's POV, she gets approached and groped by a married man. Her self-esteem issues and PTSD are aggravated. It's not described in detail--most of the scene is them arguing to Iroh right after it happens. Iroh believes Zuko fully. If you'd like to skip it, it's the very last scene, right after the boys leave the restaurant, starting at [Truthfully, Zuko has stopped feeling so bad about poverty itself.]

There's no shortage of work for Katara once they get out of the swamp. When he says he's a healer, he's pulled into the field medic ranks immediately, and that's when he learns that while King Bumi might have surrendered Omashu without a fight, the surrounding villages were not so compliant.

It's a world of difference to be on the field looking for soldiers rather than staying in the healing tents and having them brought in, like he was in the siege of the North Pole. Katara can see for himself the toll that battle takes on the land. A scorched field looks almost tame compared to how earthbending soldiers practically overturn the earth and drench them in blood. He's guided along in his search by an earthbender who keeps the team from falling into weak spots, and to dig out soldiers in collapsed tunnels--alive or dead.

The main method of defense against firebenders in the Earth Kingdom are a series of trenches and dugouts, since earth resists heat better than the ice and snow at the poles. They also string lines of bamboo or paper tubes along the ground, shells filled with saltpeter, sulfur, and gravel, to be hidden in the grass. The average soldier has little control over the hot purple flames that start when the chain is ignited. Due to how firebenders get injured by the flaming shrapnel or cease fire entirely in order to prevent it, it's a reliable means of causing a break in their defenses but has a fair chance of hitting their own soldiers, as well.

When searching is finished for the day and he's sent to the medical clinics nearer to town, where both civilians and soldiers are being treated, he notices a trend. Women come in with burns on their faces. When he sees someone with half her face bandaged, a pale, willowy young woman, he thinks it's Zuko at first--but after the fifth false alarm, he stops getting jumpy. Some are darker-skinned, some have lighter hair, others are too short or heavy-set or young or old. They can't all be her.

No matter how careful Katara is, they all heal with scars--their lips and noses distorted, or bare patches on their scalp where hair will never grow back. At best they have permanently reddened, wavy patches of skin, looking like melted wax portraits. None of them are soldiers, because the Earth Kingdom also prefers men to fight over women--and they are always, always burnt on the face. One patient comes back to the clinic after he's sent her off, demanding, "Why do I still look like this?"

"I can only speed the healing process," he tries to explain. "I can't guarantee that there won't be scars, especially if skin and flesh has been burnt away--"

She leaves the clinic in angry tears. But Katara still heals them when they ask. It gets to the point where the senior doctor, an old woman, tells him, "You're coming in through the back from now on. We need you for serious injuries."

"Those girls are--"

"Not a priority," the old women tells him bluntly, and Katara feels the rare urge to refuse, to argue. She holds a hand up. "Boy, you're the only Water Tribe healer we have. Not a single one of these girls died before you came, and they won't start now just because you stopped healing them."

"Grandma," says a young woman. "I don't think he's ever seen this before."

"Well, now you've seen it. But the pain will end for them in a few weeks, and they'll get over not being pretty. Our men are dying. They need you more."

As much as he doesn't like it, she's right. There are too many people for him to heal everyone. So Katara follows the order to go in through the back. The granddaughter, Mei Lei, appears at his elbow and helps him clean off an unconscious soldier's injured leg. She's a little older than Katara, looking about twenty. "You're Water Tribe, my grandma said?" she asks, scraping off flakes of charred skin.

"Yes."

"So it's true then? They don't hurt women over there?"

"I can't say it's never happened," Katara admits. "But I was taught that good men don't hurt civilians in war--especially not women or children. In my village, I've heard of only one man who beat his wife and that was years ago. He was exiled for it."

"Only one in your life?" Mei Lei says, with the kind of mild, polite surprise that tells Katara she doesn't quite believe it. "Well, it's a lot different over here."

"Because of the Fire Nation?" He draws water out of a bowl and starts healing the soldier's leg. It heals red and patchy and wrinkled.

She shakes her head and tells him, "Before this war, we still had disputes among our own kingdoms. The warlord Chin would scar the faces of defectors--and their wives and children. Those places that surrendered or joined him, they still use acid to mark outcasts. They're called womenless towns because women don't dare travel there alone."

Katara stares at her in horror before she reminds him to start healing, and he hurriedly starts the process.

"That's the kind of land my grandmother grew up in. She has a heart, as much as she hates to admit it, or she wouldn't have become a doctor. But she's seen this so often it's hardened her. Sometimes she forgets not everyone else is used to it."

From the front door, they hear an argument: "We've already treated you. Go home."

The girl is crying and clearly begging to come in.

"Stop that nonsense, child! I was as pretty as you once--now look at me. Old age would have had your face if the burn didn't do it."

Katara cringes. Even after the story, he can't hear any sympathy in the old woman's voice, just practicality. He tries to focus on preparing someone else, but the old doctor's voice floats in anyway, cross and unyielding.

"I have three granddaughters--do you think I don't know how to handle you? We have soldiers that have lost limbs and you're carrying on as if death is at your heels! Go home! Cry to your own mother! I won't have it here."

Katara sighs.

By the day's end, he's healed more people than he's ever seen in one place, and there are still rooms and rooms full of injured people, where the hallways echo with groans and tears. After his waterbending is completely spent, he is not told to go home but instead given normal healing supplies.

The healers tell him to be more wary of silence. He doesn't understand until he takes a wrong turn into a room filled with people but none of them make a sound. It's the middle of the day--they can't all be asleep. There are a group of women in that room, treading softly and avoiding conversation except to tell Katara he's in the wrong place, ushering him off with a very firm politeness. They have nun's beads around their necks. When he hears praying, he looks back to see them drawing a sheet over one of the beds.

Katara turns and walks faster, nervous and jumpy as he arrives late to the role call. When he mentions his wrong turn into the room full of nuns, he's given a nod of acknowledgement. After he gets his day's wages, the senior doctor beckons to him with a gnarled finger. "You won't sleep tonight, boy, but at least eat a full meal." She hands him a package wrapped in a cloth, small and heavy for its size. "I can't have you entirely useless tomorrow."

 _There's your heart,_ he thinks, relieved. There's only one pork bun in there, heavy and slightly sweetened. It fills Katara's stomach up and makes him drowsy. But his dreams are full of bloody earth and charred skin, an empty room filled with the sound of girls and men crying and foreign Earth Kingdom prayers, and the old lady telling them all to stop it or he won't be able to sleep.

He wakes in the middle of the night to Sokka shaking him. "Nuka--you okay?"

"What happened?"

"You were tossing and groaning in your sleep. It sounded like you were having nightmares."

"I'm fine," he says. "How's Aang?"

"Fine," and Sokka shrugs. Katara sits up to find Aang sleeping quietly for the first time in a while, curled up with Momo and nestled in Appa's fur. "Were they about Gran-Gran again?"

"No," he says quickly. He hopes the reminder won't start another chain of those dreams.

"You want to--"

"No, thanks," he says even quicker than before. "I just want to get back to sleep."

\- - -

Working for room and board is perhaps not so different from being at court, except for aesthetic and the fact that they're traveling. Zuko sews patches onto clothing with the neat, even stitches her mother taught her and repairs simple embroidery for an extra coin or two. She cooks rice and chops vegetables for thin congee, and as there are no spices she wonders if anyone minds, but while no one praises it the way they praise Iroh's tea, no one complains. She minds children, who don't like her dour stare and refusal to let them out of her sight. The parents are quite pleased with her strictness, however.

"Atsuko," Iroh says when she herds the sullen children back to their parents. "When they say, 'Watch the children', they do not mean--"

"I _know_ it wasn't literal but I was a child once," she tells Iroh crossly. "I know what trouble they can get into!" Not that she knew much about trouble beyond simply disappointing Ozai. Azula was the one who got into trouble, and the most she'd get was a scolding from their gentle mother.

Iroh dares to laugh at her. "You will learn when you have children of your own," he says. But then, he had Lu Ten for a son, a young prince so perfect that Zuko couldn't even hate him.

Zuko thinks of her scar and how every man runs from her, how Ozai knew that the likelihood of her getting married after the duel was next to nothing even with her title and abilities. She lets Iroh mind the children from then on. When no one sees her, she collects herself in a corner and digs her nails into her own palms, feeling dangerously close to either crying or cursing her real father's name.

There is work to be done, she reminds herself.

She washes clothes in cold rivers and hauls a bucket on each shoulder for a night's stay and a bath at a rare inn. She surreptitiously speeds heating the water with her bending so she can soak longer, and feels better than she did after climbing out of perfumed baths in the palace. She crafts pottery and bakes it in a kiln, keeping one water jug as payment. She draws nets of fish, full or less so, and receives a fishing line and net of her own; she digs for clams; she gathers seaweed and washes it for soup.

She scatters millet to gull-hens for a handful of eggs that she packs in cloth so they won't break. She milks carabao-cows and pours half their payment of milk into the water jug she made. The other half is a pound of -dried jerky. She learns to weave baskets, blankets, hats, cloth, and bleeds more than a few times before her soft lady's hands grow rough and quick. Iroh calls her Princess anyway, and no one bats an eye because they think it's a nickname. Zuko tolerates it. Barely.

The work is exhausting, but no more difficult to master than anything else in her life, and for a while Zuko thinks nothing of it until she goes to sleep hungry and wakes up even hungrier and realizes--there, there is the difference. Where she woke up at dawn to practice katas and sparred until every muscle was sore and bruised and her clothes were soaked with sweat, she was fed enough to restore her strength for the next day.

Zuko does not build strength. She loses it with every bowl of rice they do not have. Her frame grows wiry and spare, her chest flattens, the bones of her wrist poking out birdlike through her skin. She tries not to let Iroh see. But when she gets headaches, her monthly bleeding stops, and one day she cannot rise to look for work, he takes one look at her and offers her water, which she sips weakly. It only sharpens the pain in her stomach--she still can't stand.

To her horror, Iroh puts his bowl in front of him. Zuko lies there helpless and humiliated as her old uncle starts begging.

"A coin for an old man and his daughter?" he calls. "She has fallen ill! I cannot leave her!"

"I am _not_ ill," she mutters, her face flushing red as her scar.

"Delirious from fever! Hear what nonsense she speaks! Oh, won't you spare a coin for our supper tonight?"

A few people do. When the calls do not bring enough gold, Iroh starts to sing. Zuko covers her ears. She might not hate begging now, but that is only when Iroh does not involve her at all. To have him mention her condition--it makes her feel wretched. Now she understands what he meant, saying that begging went against her nature and not his. Iroh can do this because he has faith in the universe to be kind to him and Zuko is the exact opposite. She can only focus on the people who pass them by nervously without a glance--or worse, the ones who scowl at them.

The coin is enough for a few days. She still doesn't speak to Iroh over dinner that night, finishing her rice in a few bits. In the morning she finishes her breakfast first and immediately gets up. "Atsuko, no--you are still too weak," Iroh protests, but she shakes her head.

Though her hands shake throughout the day, she finds a farm and comes back to their spot on the street with vegetables and fruits in her apron. She feels worse afterwords, her head aches even as she eats dinner and Iroh watches her keenly--but she refuses to admit it.

\- - -

 _We think that because they're dead, they're gone, but their spirits are still with us._ Katara remembers Huu saying something like that not two weeks ago. And while it felt comforting in the swamp, it's less so when Katara's looking through the trenches. He feels so many pools of lingering energies that he nearly misses the source of warm blood pulsing beneath his feet.

"Here!" he cries, directing the earthbender to the ground. There's a collapsed trench full of softened earth that they skirted around. "There's someone alive down here!"

His companion carefully digs around until a fist claws out of the earth and they pull out a young man covered in dirt and babbling incoherently. He looks and sounds not much older than Sokka. Katara gives him water, but the soldier ignores it and curls up into himself, sobbing.

"How'd you know he was there?" the earthbender asks as they set up a stretcher.

"I'm a waterbender," he says. "I can sense when people are nearby."

It's a miracle that the young man is mostly unharmed except for a broken leg--the reason he couldn't simply bend himself out of the trench. But when the sun sets and the candles and lanterns are blown out one by one, the soldier shrieks and thrashes around, almost falling off the cot before people get to him with a lantern in hand. And Katara cringes to see the old doctor is right next to him.

"What's this racket?" she asks.

"I think he's scared of the dark."

"Bad fear to have for a soldier," she says critically.

"They just dug him out of a trench, Grandma," says Mei Lei.

"Hmph." She still scolds the soldier--but not quite as harshly as she had the young girl. "Hush up, boy. We can't move you if you're flailing around." To Katara she says, "Get him to the candle room."

"The what?"

"Right, you're new." She gestures to Mei Lei. "You might as well help him." They both take up an end of the cot and she leads him to a room which is otherwise unremarkable except for the amount of candles on each bedside table. It's quiet--but when Katara looks around, he sees nearly all of the men are awake and watching them.

"They were all buried alive," she explains. "It's not uncommon for them to have nightmares about it. So it's easier to just put them all in the same room."

"Oh." He eyes the candles, flickering, and the lack of anyone besides the patients. "Shouldn't there be a healer at night to watch the candles?"

"We watch ourselves," says one of the older men. His torso is bandaged and he sounds like he's breathed in too much smoke. "There's always one of us who can't sleep. We'll call if something happens and none of us can get to it."

They set the cot down in an empty space. Mei Lei opens a chest in the middle of the room and brings out candles, arranging them around the head. "You can light them yourself if one of them goes out," she tells the soldier, who nods quickly. "You can lay on the side with your broken leg, just don't put any extra weight on it..."

It's not too late by the time Katara gets back to Appa, but he's even more exhausted than usual and he still has to wash his clothes. He changes, already half-asleep, and raises his hand to the river before recalling that his chi was drained a few hours ago. He sighs and resolves to use normal medicine if at all possible instead of waiting until his waterbending is spent, so at least he won't have to wash by hand at the end of the day. But before he can do anything, Sokka comes up--startling him--and puts an arm around his shoulders.

"You know what we should do, guys?" his brother asks.

"I don't know, Sokka," Aang says. "What do you think we should do?"

"Have a nice dinner in town."

Katara shakes his head as he wrings the water out of his clothes. "We have no idea how long it will take to find another earthbending teacher--"

"Ha! I knew you'd say that, and that's why I've got _this._ " Sokka takes out a purse of his own and jingles it. "I've been working, too. I'm not going to let my little kid brother work for all our money while I hang around and play with Momo." He ignores Katara pointing out that he's nearly of age himself. "Did you know people train animals to catch fish for them here? It's pretty cool--I just did regular fishing because I don't have a golden otter or a sea raven. I've also asked around for restaurants. There's this spot on the edge of town that people say has the best dumplings--"

Katara recognizes when Sokka cannot be stopped. He settles for nodding in agreement.

"--even though, for some reason, they said not to take Aang with us." He looks at Aang, who beams back at him innocently, and they both shrug. "Probably because kids can be loud and annoying. No offense, Aang."

"But I'm going to be on my best behavior!" Aang insists. "Really, I'm not going to yell or run around like some kids. The monks taught me to be polite!"

"It sounds nice," Katara says. "But I'm really tired."

"That's perfectly understandable," Sokka tells him--and if Katara hadn't been half-asleep, the sudden change really should have tipped him off.

"After a long day of healing, we get it!" Aang says. "We won't force you to go."

"But Aang and I really want to see this restaurant, so we'll just go without you and bring something back. What's the worst that could happen?"

Katara stands up instantly. "I'm going." Maybe some food will give him enough energy to bend, he thinks with a sigh.

\- - -

Zuko, Princess of the Fire Nation, is still the ugliest girl she knows whether she keeps company among nobles or peasants.

The poor women are the first to agree. That would be a relief in itself, for she is tired of protests from her uncle and insincere compliments from anyone else, especially strange men. But these women say afterwards, "Still, you are smart, and loyal to your father, and you work very hard. You will find a man to marry you one day, and a good one." She doesn't know what to say to that, so she scrubs the dishes harder than necessary. She never thought anyone _would_ look past her face.

The thought of marriage under a false name also gives her pause. Even if the marriage will not be recorded in stone as in the Hall of Blood--a piece of paperwork if anything, perhaps even less considering her new stature--it will lend a permanence that she dislikes to this lie. She doesn't know how Iroh can stand it. Perhaps it is his age. His hair is already white. Zuko is in the spring of her life--she might very well use her false name longer than she did her real name. And even if it is to keep herself and Iroh safe--she would rather not do it at all. Even if King Bumi had thrown her into the dungeon as "sanctuary", it would at least be under her real name.

But one thing about being poor is that she has no time to worry about such things as permanence and honesty and the royal blood in her veins when their most urgent problem is having rice to eat.

As it happens, she and Iroh stay at a rice farm for a week and Zuko finally learns how that most precious of foods gets to their table.

There are so many people, men and women both, that Zuko's lack of experience is unnoticed. She's simply directed to a group of other young women hired for the harvest where a plump, motherly woman teaches them everything they need to know.

In the morning Zuko hikes up her skirt and wades barefoot into rice fields up to her knees to cut the stalks while tiny fish swimming about her ankles. They are tied up in bundles to dry in the sun on large wooden racks. In the afternoon she pounds the dried rice in a mortar for hours until it's free of the brown husks. Then she ties a scarf around her mouth and nose and winnows the rice by tossing it in long thin baskets to rid the chaff. Over and over and over. The weight builds up with her fatigue till the same load of rice at the end of the day becomes a massive burden in her arms.

And when she has a small bag of rice to show for her pains, it is not white but drab brown. She is given the option of polishing it for whiteness, but her hands are blistered and raw and her stomach empty, so she refuses, along with most of the other hired workers. It is enough for a week's travel on the road. She comes back to her uncle with a tinge of shame in her downcast gaze because surely, _surely_ he expected more of her. But he says, "Well done, daughter."

One of the other rice gatherers tells Iroh how lucky he is to have such a devoted daughter. While Zuko wonders what prompted that, Iroh warmly tells them, "She is the light of my life. I am very proud of her." This brings tears to her eyes faster than any insult. She tries to remind herself that her uncle is probably thinking of Lu Ten.

Still.

Zuko looks for a long time in the market for something her uncle would like and finds, of all things, golden dragonfruit. The price is much more than she should spend on a single fruit--back in the Fire Nation they could and often did simply pluck it off the trees themselves. But she does not trust herself to make the fine tea Iroh loves and a brick of tea is even more expensive than the fruit. Meanwhile a child could make the cooling drink so beloved among their people, and she is suddenly homesick as well.

She buys the fruit at once, slices it in half when she returns to the kitchen, and mashes the mild white flesh into fresh coconut milk, enough for two cups. After dinner, she presents the first drink to Iroh in a humble wooden cup, speckled with the tiny black seeds. She does not think of Ozai when she says, "For you, Father."

Even less so when she sees Iroh look into the cup and exclaim, "Dragonfruit!" with a smile. He clasps her hand before tasting the drink with a hum of satisfaction, and he doesn't even ask her how much she spent, much less chide her about it. "Where is the other half?" is his only question.

And when she points to the other cup on the counter, he gives it to her instead of taking it for himself. It is cooler than usual for an Earth Kingdom summer night, but they go outside and sit on the porch anyway, because that is how dragonfruit should be drunk. They sip and watch the birds splashing through the water, Iroh resting his hand on Zuko's shoulder and telling stories she already knows, but listens to anyway. 

Her sleep is calm that night for the first time in years.

\- - -

Katara should have known something was wrong when they all dress in their formal suits and arrive at the restaurant on the edge of town only to find a burly doorman who bars them from entering. "Fifteen coppers for the lot of you."

"Why do we have to pay just to get in?" Sokka demands.

"It's the rules," the doorman grunts. "Pay up or find somewhere else." He squints down his nose at Aang. "You sure you want to take the kid in with you?"

"There's no one to leave him with."

"You won't even notice I'm there!" Aang says confidently.

"Hmmph," is the response. "Ten coppers."

Sokka sighs and hands over the money. "This better be the best restaurant I've ever been to. Katara, can we--"

"No," Katara says. "You said this was on you and I'm holding you to it."

"Āyí Fu!" the doorman calls. "Two esteemed guests--and one child."

Sokka brightens up instantly. " _Esteemed._ I think I might like this place after all."

A middle-aged woman with very opulent clothing sweeps into the hallway with a few more servers than necessary--all of them very pretty girls with decorated fans. "Good evening, gentlemen! Welcome to my fine restaurant."

Several of the servers giggle behind their fans, batting their eyes at him and Sokka. Āyí Fu takes her own fan out of her sleeve and raps their knuckles.

"Girls!" says Āyí Fu mock-sternly, "These handsome men and their young friend are looking for a pleasant dining experience. Do make them comfortable in the, ah, _family_ room."

There's a sigh of disappointment, but they stop flirting when they catch sight of Aang. They're seated in a room with no one else in it besides a girl with a guzheng who looks very bored. "We'll have tea for you in a moment, _esteemed guests,_ " says one of the servers. Another collective giggle. They mince away, fluttering their fans. The guzheng player begins a gentle tune that doesn't quite hide the loud drunken cheers in the room down the hall.

When they're gone, Sokka leans closer to Katara and whispers, "I think I know why this restaurant is so popular. It's one of those--"

Katara gestures furiously to Aang, who's now chatting with the guzheng player. "You're very good!"

"Thanks!" she says. "Honestly I prefer the tsungi horn, but Āyí told me it sounds too much like a dirge." She plucks at the guzheng. "When I was starting out, my sisters would tease me by saying I sounded like a sad turtleduck."

Aang laughs. "My playing sounded like a sad turtleduck even after months of training. My teacher gently suggested I try a flute instead."

"Your tea, sirs," calls a server. They pour for Sokka first, who preens a little at being recognized as the oldest without being asked. Then they put down a tray of sweets and Aang snags one of the sesame seed rolls before they finish pouring his cup.

"What?" Aang asks, gulping, as the servers laugh at him. "Oh, sorry! Best behavior." He swallows painfully, then sips his tea.

"Don't be so stuffy, little brother," one girl assures him. "You've already shaved your head like a monk." They pat his head. "Now if the party next door gets too boisterous, just tell us and we'll have them settle down."

The next course comes before they've quite finished. "Stupid efficient service," Sokka grumbles. Their plates are taken, their tea refreshed, and the apparently famous dumplings are set down in front of them as a very chatty server lists the main courses on the menu. Unfortunately Sokka gets his usual order of grilled meat--pig-chicken with turmeric rice.

"Sokka!" Katara admonishes when the server sweeps out of the room before they can change it. "That's going to take forever!"

"That's why we gave you the dumplings first," the guzheng player tells them with a laugh.

"I didn't have time to think of anything quicker!" Sokka stuffs a dumpling into his mouth. "Anyway, it's my money."

"Oh," Aang says, poking at the dumplings. "Are those all filled with meat? I'm a vegetarian."

"Iseul!" the player calls. "Vegetarian in the house, quick!" She smiles at them and starts playing again. "Sorry, we should have realized it when you ordered all vegetable dishes."

"No, no, it's my fault for not telling you, I always forget--"

"I think the guzheng player is signaling the others," Katara whispers to Sokka while Aang is distracted. "She keeps playing one phrase over and over but changed it when we were done eating."

"Yeah, there's no way we can just leave early."

"Why do you want to leave early?" Aang asks. "I like it here." Katara mumbles something about being tired but changing his mind. 

"And the food is pretty good here!" Sokka admits. As the servers seem to be sincere about leaving Aang out of the usual... routine of the house, Katara exchanges a glance with his brother and they both silently agree not to breathe a word about it.

When dinner is finished, Sokka hands over the money with only a little bit of complaining, while Aang says to their hostess, "Thank you for such excellent service, Āyí Fu! I'm surprised more people haven't come here, your food is amazing!"

"We've only recently changed our recipes, dear."

"My compliments to the cook!"

"Oh, the one who gave us that recipe arrived and left a week ago, but not before breathing some new life into this house." She keeps walking and talking until they're out of the hallway, at which point Āyí Fu bids them goodbye and the door shuts firmly behind them.

The doorman nods. "Gentlemen."

Sokka looks at the few coppers left in his bag, then sighs and dumps them out into his palm. "I'll catch up with you guys in a second."

Katara hurries away--helpfully, Aang yawns--and catches Sokka saying under his voice, "Thanks for at least trying to warn us."

"Eh. Āyí Fu would have figured something out to keep a paying customer."

The doorman still takes the money, which is apparently all Sokka has left. He catches up to them, grumbling about how the food was average at best and not nearly good enough for a door fee. Aang flops down onto Appa as soon as they get back, snoring. Katara smiles and pulls a blanket over him, then realizes he hadn't once thought about the clinic, girls with burnt faces or men buried alive--and that was probably Sokka's real goal of the night. Testing his chi, he reaches out and the water in his flask responds, freezing, then unfreezing. He dries out his clothes, then turns to his brother who's almost asleep himself.

"Thanks, Sokka."

Sokka opens one baleful eye. "For what?"

"Spending all your money on dinner just to distract me from my nightmares."

"Well, you better sleep like a log tonight or I'm not doing it again."

\- - -

Truthfully, Zuko has stopped feeling so bad about poverty itself. In much the same way as adjusting to a new routine, she has gotten used to being hungry. It would be almost bearable, all the grinding work for scraps and crumbs, because Zuko has learned she has value other than her beauty and her title, that the bereft still have their dignity. (That ugly girls still have their dignity.)

But men still approach her. And, to her frustration, even married men will do so without shame.

Lacking the protection of a noble title, the firebending she must keep secret, or the dual swords which would be too suspicious for a woman to carry, Zuko is only a poor man's daughter with a mangled face. In hallways, when Zuko's hands are full or is otherwise distracted, they corner her. Bored of their wives, who have aged past their beauty and grown weary of childbearing, they say the same things: _How pretty you are even with that scar. What a shame. Are you scarred anywhere else?_ Their hands creeping under her skirt, under her blouse.

The first time it happens, she slaps the man, making sure to leave nail marks on his face, and runs out of the kitchen to find Iroh. "Father!" She cannot stay here, cannot sleep under the same roof as someone who has no regard for her desires. "Father, we have to leave!" The only good thing about being banished was that she did not have to stay in the same country as Ozai and now her fear has turned to something bitter.

"What is the rush--"

"Please!"

"But what happened?"

The man strides out after them, covering his cheek with a cloth. "Sir, sir! Your daughter is confused--"

Zuko points at the farmer and shouts, "He put his hands on me!"

"It was an accident--"

"It wasn't, it wasn't!" If Iroh does not believe her she will leave on her own. He would take her word for it--would he? But no, he was there when Ozai burned her face. He was not there when this happened, the man had left no mark while Zuko had--what if he thinks she lost her temper over a slight and is blaming the man, she would never--

"Please, she's mistaken--"

" _No!_ " In her ears is the roar of fire and her own screams; her voice sounds like a frightened child and tears are running down her face. "Father, Father, please believe me--"

"I believe you, Atsuko." Iroh frowns at the man. "My daughter takes great care to avoid being touched unless absolutely necessary. She does not allow for accidents and she is never mistaken." Zuko breathes a sigh of relief as her whirling panic cautiously stills. "Meanwhile it is quite common for men to approach against her will."

"What's this racket?" The wife comes out. She scans the scene, then turns to her husband. "Really? A girl with a scar like that?"

"I--"

"Sleep in the barn," she tells him--orders him, really. He almost protests, but she raises a hand (in warning? or threat?) and that makes him leave.

Iroh turns to Zuko. "Dear--"

She paces away and hears him sigh.

The river nearby has a few golden otters who chatter to each other and then, sensing her approach, roll over and swim out a little further.

She stares at her reflection and covers her scarred half with one hand, imagining her face as it might have been. Then she covers the other side and imagines if Ozai had burnt her entire face. Neither of them seem to hold any more protection, it appears to be her gender which men prey on--but as vain as it is, perhaps it would have made her feel better. To be trapped in such a liminal space is as torturous as she can imagine--catching a glimpse of the beauty she might have had while not being able to escape ugliness entirely.

Zuko flicks the water off her hands, holding herself as the sky bleeds and takes the sun's comfort with it. She misses her mother.

Once the sun has set, she is forced to make a choice between staying outside and going back to the farmhouse. She is many things, but not a coward, and as the farmer has been turned out for the night, she has no reason to stay away. Dinner is still fraught, at least to her. The children, one of them close to Zuko's age, seem accustomed to sudden unexplained absences of their father and chatter away to Iroh instead, who indulges and distracts them with stories while Zuko leaves her plate untouched.

"Shall we go outside and play?" Iroh asks, and the children readily go outside.

"Eat," the woman tells her, the first word she's said to Zuko since this afternoon. "Or you'll faint."

Zuko numbly takes a bite of her rice. Her hands shake and she puts the chopsticks down after a few more. She takes a sip of the tea, Iroh's tea lovingly brewed, but it does nothing to calm her.

"I know it wasn't your fault," the farmer's wife tells her, with a blunt sort of kindness. It almost reminds her of Mai, her sister's friend. They did not strictly get along, but as they were both reserved young women, Zuko felt a kinship of sorts. "You're not friendly at all."

"You put him in the barn," Zuko says.

"Yes, that's what people do when their husbands are unfaithful."

"And this has happened before?"

"Yes."

"But how do you stand this--this _disrespect?_ "

"Well, respect would be nice." She shrugs. "But this is his family's land, and I have three children with him, and we are not rich. Anyway, where would I find a more honorable man?" She says it like she's talking about hidden treasure, or a dragon, something completely fantastical in one of Iroh's stories. The sheer indifference is both bewildering and infuriating. "Finish your food."

Zuko does, even if she nearly chokes. She sleeps fitfully on the floor, wakes up well before dawn, and mends clothes in furious silence until the sun rises.

"When we get to Ba Sing Se," Zuko tells the woman, "I will write to you."

"We can't read."

Zuko says tightly, "A message, then."

The woman smiles for the first time since Zuko and Iroh arrived there a week ago and reaches out to clasp a hand. "Thank you for all of your hard work."


End file.
